Onomatopoeia + する: Verbalizing Mimetic Words

The onomatopoeia + する pattern turns a Japanese mimetic word into a verb by attaching the light verb する. The result is an intransitive predicate that means "be in or display that state."¹² This is how ドキドキ (a heart-pounding feeling) becomes ドキドキする, "one's heart pounds."¹

Overview

Sound-symbolic words are primarily adverbs. They become verbs through the auxiliary する, and the resulting verb is very commonly used in the ～している (ongoing-state) form.³¹ This article focuses on that verbalization mechanic: which mimetic words take する, how the verb behaves, how it conjugates, and the high-frequency emotion-state words a learner needs to recognize.

The hub article explains the four-class taxonomy of onomatopoeia (giongo, giseigo, gitaigo, gijōgo); this article only refers to it. The pattern verbalizes state and manner mimetics (gitaigo and the emotion subclass gijōgo) rather than pure sound effects.¹²

Where this sits in a study sequence

The +する verbalization and its high-frequency collocations (ドキドキする, ワクワクする, イライラする) are commonly grouped at N3 by third-party study materials.⁴ Treat that as a curriculum placement for the collocation set, not an official fact: the JLPT does not publish a vocabulary list, and the underlying operation is described in linguistics rather than the JLPT can-do specifications.¹²

How the pattern works: onomatopoeia + する

The base rule: mimetic word + する = "be in that state"

The mimetic word functions as a sound-symbolic adverbial. Here, する is a light verb, meaning it has little meaning of its own. It is not the lexical verb "to do." The construction integrates the mimetic's meaning into the predicate rather than expressing the "doing" of the mimetic.⁵²

The output is a verb meaning "be in or exhibit the state denoted by the mimetic," not "perform an action named by the mimetic."¹²

心臓しんぞうがドキドキしてる！⁶
"My heart's beating so fast!"

This parallels the ordinary noun + する suru-verb (for example 勉強する), where する verbalizes a noun. The light-verb behavior is the same, but the input category differs. In a suru-verb, する verbalizes a noun. Here, it verbalizes a sound-symbolic adverbial.²

ドキドキしてきた。⁷
"I'm getting excited."

Which onomatopoeia take する

State-and-feeling mimetics (gitaigo and the emotion subclass gijōgo, such as ドキドキ, ワクワク, イライラ, そわそわ) readily become verbs with する.¹⁸ Pure sound-effect mimetics (giongo and giseigo, such as ワンワン for a dog's bark or ガチャン for a clatter) generally do not take する. They pair with the quotative と plus a concrete lexical verb such as 吠ほえる ("bark"), 鳴なる ("ring"), or 切きる ("cut, hang up").¹³

The split is easiest to hold as a decision based on what the word names.

If the word names how something internally is or feels, it tends to take する. If it imitates an external noise, it tends to take と plus a concrete verb.⁸

犬いぬは「ワンワン」と吠ほえる。⁹
"The dog goes 'woof-woof.'"

トムは電話でんわをガチャンと切きった。¹⁰
"Tom slammed down the phone."

Read the heuristic as a strong tendency, not a law

Verb-formation availability is gradual and limited by the specific word. Most sound-symbolic words combine with only a small set of verbs or predicates, and a minority go against the state-versus-sound split. Use the heuristic to predict the common case, then confirm the specific word against usage.¹³⁸

These verbs are intransitive and self-experienced

The mimetic + する verb is intransitive: it takes no を-marked direct object. The grammatical subject is the experiencer, or a body part where the experiencer feels the state, such as 心臓しんぞうが, 胸むねが, or 心こころが.¹⁶¹¹

English often frames the same event with a transitive verb ("it excites me," "it makes me nervous"). As an analogy, not an exact equivalence, Japanese instead frames the event around the experiencer's own internal state. There is no causer object inside the clause.¹²

胸むねがワクワクして眠ねむれなかった。¹¹
"My heart was fluttering with excitement and I couldn't sleep."

Conjugation and sentence patterns

Tense, aspect, and negation

Because する is the host verb, the construction inflects exactly like any する-verb. The dedicated suru-verb article covers the full する paradigm. The cells below show the forms that matter for these mimetics, using ドキドキ.²³

Form	Example	Meaning
Non-past plain	ドキドキする	one's heart pounds
Past plain	ドキドキした	one's heart pounded
Progressive / ongoing state	ドキドキしている	one's heart is pounding
Negative non-past	ドキドキしない	one's heart does not pound
Negative past	ドキドキしなかった	one's heart did not pound
Polite non-past	ドキドキします	one's heart pounds (polite)

The ～している form is extremely common with these verbs because the words denote ongoing internal states rather than instantaneous acts.³¹

彼かれはイライラしていた。¹²
"He was irritated."

まったくワクワクしない。¹³
"I'm not the least bit excited."

The optional quotative と: ドキドキとする

Many of these mimetics accept an inserted quotative と before する and before lexical verbs, as in きらきら(と)光ひかる or じろじろ(と)見みる. The と is often optional. When included, it gives the phrase a faint adverbial or quotative flavor that can read as slightly more deliberate or literary.³¹

きらきら(と)光ひかる
"to shine sparklingly" (the と is optional; constructed minimal phrase illustrating the documented optional-と pattern).

For high-frequency reduplicated emotion verbs such as ドキドキする and ワクワクする, the bare する form dominates in ordinary speech. The と-inserted variant ドキドキとする is grammatically available but markedly less common, more emphatic, and more literary. Treat the bare form as the default.³¹

Connecting to clauses (考えるとワクワクする)

A typical trigger frame puts the cause in a subordinate clause and the experiencer-state verb in the main clause. Use [cause]と plus mimetic + する ("when or whenever [cause], one feels …"), or [cause]で plus mimetic + する ("because of [cause], one feels …").¹⁴

トムと話はなしていると、とてもワクワクするの。¹⁴
"When I talk to Tom, I get all excited."

Two different と are in play

The と in this trigger frame is the conditional or temporal "when(ever)" と. It is different from the optional quotative と inside ドキドキとする. The trigger frame keeps the experiencer as the subject and the cause outside the core predicate.¹⁴

Common collocations

ドキドキ・ワクワク: anticipation and excitement

ドキドキする means the heart pounds. It covers nervousness, fearful tension, excitement, and romantic flutter. Its subject is typically the experiencer or 心臓しんぞう, 胸むね, or 心こころ.⁶¹⁵

心臓しんぞうがドキドキしてる！⁶
"My heart's beating so fast!"

ワクワクする means positive, fluttery anticipation or thrill. It is forward-looking excitement about something pleasant.¹¹¹⁵

子供こどもの頃ころ、遠足えんそくの前まえの日ひには、胸むねがワクワクして眠ねむれなかった。¹¹
"When I was a child I would get so excited the night before a school excursion that my heart would be pounding and I couldn't sleep."

イライラ・ハラハラ: irritation and anxious tension

イライラする means building irritation, frustration, or edginess: the experiencer is annoyed.¹²¹⁶ ハラハラする means on-edge anxiety while watching something risky or precarious unfold. It is nervous suspense about an outcome.¹⁷

The shade is different. イライラ is internally generated annoyance at a frustrating situation, while ハラハラ is anxious suspense directed at an external, uncertain event one is watching.

彼かれはイライラしていた。¹²
"He was irritated."

なんでイライラしてるの？¹⁶
"Why are you so irritated?"

さっきの試合しあい、最後さいごに逆転ぎゃくてんされておまえが負まけるんじゃないかと思おもってハラハラしたぞ。¹⁷
"That match earlier, with the comeback at the end, had me on the edge of my seat thinking you might lose."

A quick reference set of する-onomatopoeia

Beyond the core four, the following mimetics also become verbs with する. A dedicated emotion article covers the finer shades and the full emotion inventory.

Mimetic	+する verb	Gloss
うきうき	うきうきする	be lighthearted, cheerfully buoyant with anticipation15
そわそわ	そわそわする	be restless or fidgety, unable to settle18
がっかり	がっかりする	be disappointed or let down19
ぞくぞく	ぞくぞくする	feel a shiver or thrill (excitement or chills)15

Two of these are attested in the corpus as intransitive experiencer-state verbs: そわそわする (彼はそわそわしていた)¹⁸ and がっかりする (彼はがっかりした).¹⁹ The うきうき and ぞくぞく glosses come from the NINJAL onomatopoeia database.¹⁵

Nuance and usage contexts

Register: casual speech, conversation, and writing

These verbs are conversational and frequent. They appear freely in informal and neutral writing and have no special politeness barrier. They conjugate politely as normal (ドキドキします).³¹⁵

They are less typical in formal, technical, or bureaucratic prose. In those contexts, writers often prefer a non-mimetic equivalent, such as 緊張きんちょうする ("be tense or nervous"), 興奮こうふんする ("be excited"), or いらだつ ("be irritated"). The mimetic verbs read as vivid and everyday rather than formal.¹ The mimetic stratum is a distinct, expressive layer of the lexicon. Its strong association with vivid, sensory, everyday expression is the basis for this register placement.¹

Default to ～している for these state verbs

The ～している form is the high-frequency choice for these verbs. The bare non-past often reads as a generic statement or a just-now onset. When describing someone in the middle of a state, reach for the ～している form first.¹³

Intensity and emphasis

Sound changes can scale intensity. Lengthening, gemination (doubling a consonant), or extra reduplication intensifies the mimetic. That is the felt difference between ドキドキ and a heavier ドッキンドッキン. These alternations are part of the systematic sound-symbolic patterning of the mimetic stratum.¹ The dedicated emotion article covers the deeper inventory of phonological intensifiers. Here, it is enough to note that form manipulation maps onto felt intensity.¹

Good to know

する here is a light verb, not "to do"

A common error is reading ドキドキする as "do dokidoki" and then adding a direct object, as in 私はドキドキをする or 私は彼をドキドキする for "I am excited" or "he excites me." Here, する is a light verb meaning "be in that state." The verb is intransitive, so there is no を-marked object. The experiencer (or a body part) is the subject.¹²

私わたしはドキドキする。¹
"I'm nervous and excited."

Re-reading ドキドキする as "be in the heart-pounding state" fixes the light-verb parse and predicts the intransitivity: a state has an experiencer, not a patient.²¹

Don't force する onto pure sound effects

Sound effects do not become verbs with する. Forms like 犬がワンワンする or 電話がガチャンする are wrong. Giongo and giseigo take the quotative と plus a concrete lexical verb instead, because verb-formation availability tracks the word's meaning type (state versus external sound).¹³⁸

犬いぬがワンワンと吠ほえる。⁹
"The dog barks 'woof-woof.'"

Many of these are emotion-state words

ドキドキ, ワクワク, イライラ, and ハラハラ are feeling-state mimetics. Their finer shades of meaning and the full set of emotion mimetics belong to a dedicated emotion treatment. This article keeps them as worked examples of the +する mechanic.¹⁵

The script does not change the grammar

These words appear in both katakana (ドキドキ) and hiragana (どきどき). Katakana is a common stylistic choice for onomatopoeia, but the spelling does not alter the +する mechanic, the conjugation, or the meaning.¹⁵³

See also

• Texture and Appearance Onomatopoeia: フワフワ, ザラザラ, ベタベタ
• Movement Onomatopoeia: ゆっくり, バタバタ, グルグル
• Onomatopoeia in Manga and Anime: ドカン, バーン, シーン
• Japanese Emotions and Feelings Vocabulary: 嬉しい, 悲しい, and the ～がる Third-Person Rule
• Suru-Verbs (する-Verbs): How する Turns Nouns Into Verbs
• The と Particle: With, And, Quote

References

Footnotes

1. Hamano, Shoko. The Sound-Symbolic System of Japanese. Studies in Japanese Linguistics. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications / Tokyo: Kurosio, 1998. https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/1575861445.shtml ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³

2. Tsujimura, Natsuko. "Mimetic verbs and meaning." In Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Hans Christian Luschützky & Wolfgang U. Dressler (eds.), Morphology and Meaning: Selected papers from the 15th International Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2012 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 327). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014, pp. 303–314. https://benjamins.com/catalog/cilt.327.21tsu ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. "Japanese sound symbolism." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_sound_symbolism (limitation: tertiary source; used only for uncontested general descriptions that are independently supported by ¹–⁵). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

4. Japanesetest4you. "JLPT N3 Vocabulary List" (lists ドキドキ・ワクワク・イライラ class mimetics among N3 study vocabulary). https://japanesetest4you.com/jlpt-n3-vocabulary-list/ (limitation: third-party JLPT-prep aggregator; the JLPT does not publish an official vocabulary list, so level is approximate. Used only to corroborate the content-plan's N3 assignment.) ↩

5. Akita, Kimi. "Suru and to for Japanese mimetics: A semantic-integration account." Handbook of the Fifth International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese, San Francisco State University, 2006, pp. 26–27. https://sites.google.com/site/akitambo/Home/biblio/bib ↩ ↩²

6. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 145569. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/145569 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 10608990. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/10608990 ↩

8. Sugahara, Takashi. "The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words." In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems (Iconicity in Language and Literature 18). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2022, pp. 351–368. DOI 10.1075/ill.18.16sug. https://benjamins.com/catalog/ill.18.16sug ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 11605431. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/11605431 ↩ ↩²

10. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 2129973. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2129973 ↩

11. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 168619. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/168619 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

12. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 1278029. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1278029 ↩ ↩² ↩³

13. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 11001614. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/11001614 ↩

14. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 8560300. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/8560300 ↩ ↩² ↩³

15. 国立国語研究所 (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, NINJAL). 「日本語を楽しもう！擬音語って？擬態語って？」(onomatopoeia educational database with per-word entries and example sentences). https://www2.ninjal.ac.jp/Onomatope/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

16. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 10726376. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/10726376 ↩ ↩²

17. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 1098364. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/1098364 ↩ ↩²

18. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 112146. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/112146 ↩ ↩²

19. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus, sentence ID 114140. https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/114140 ↩ ↩²