Shivering, trembling and dizziness – Japanese mimetics
Nine words for shaking and for the room spinning: ぶるぶる, ぞくぞく, くらくら – and what makes each one tremble.
くらくら · to feel dizzy
The room spins.
Voiceless く is lighter: your head sways, not the furniture. くらくら names the sensation in the head itself — the room turns, everything goes dark; ふらふら names something else: that nothing is settled, neither the step nor the thought. Both can end with you crouching down, so failing to stay on your feet settles nothing here — what settles it is whether the world spins or your head fogs over. ぐるぐる, by contrast, describes a thing that really turns round, not the person looking.
Examples
- 立ち上がったら景色が回ってくらくらした。I stood up and the room spun; my head swam.
- のぼせて天井が回り、くらくらして座り込んだ。I got overheated; the ceiling spun and I sat down.
ぐらぐら · to wobble
An unsteady thing: a table, a tooth, a shelf.
Voiced ぐ is heavier and bigger — an object wobbles, not a feeling. What separates the neighbours is what has happened to the fixing: ぐらぐら wobbles because its mounting has given way and the thing is about to go over; がたがた knocks and rattles because there is play between the parts; ゆらゆら sways calmly, with nothing at stake.
Examples
- 積んだ本が揺れてぐらぐらし、今にも倒れそうだ。The book stack is wobbling, about to topple.
- 抜けそうな乳歯が傾き、ぐらぐらと揺れて痛い。The loose baby tooth tilts and wobbles; it hurts.
びりびり · to tingle sharply
Electricity through the body; also: tearing.
Voiced び is strong and sudden — it does not burn, it jolts. What separates it from じんじん is time: びりびり passes through like a discharge and is gone, while じんじん stays long after the cause has stopped.
Examples
- 肘をぶつけて、腕が電気みたいにびりびりした。I banged my elbow and a jolt shot through my arm.
- ドアノブに触れたらびりびりと静電気が走った。I touched the doorknob and got a static shock.
ぶるぶる · to tremble in small shivers
Shaking from cold or from fear.
The 濁点 in ぶ makes the trembling involuntary — from cold or from fear, and impossible to stop. Plain ふるふる is light and faint: it is how you shake your head to say no (ふるふると首を振る), not how you shiver in the cold. The four neighbours each leave along a different axis: がくがく shakes coarsely, at the whole joint, until the knees give, while ぶるぶる trembles finely just under the skin; ぞくぞく does not tremble at all, it runs down the back as a chill; びくびく stays inside, being a person's fear rather than a movement of the body; ぷるぷる quivers softly and pleasantly, and is said of a thing, not of someone cold.
Examples
- 寒くて歯の根が合わず、ぶるぶると細かく震える。Cold makes my teeth chatter and my body shiver.
- 恐怖で体が細かくぶるぶるし、歯の根が合わない。Fear makes me shiver finely, teeth chattering.
がくがく · to shake at the joints
Knees that shake and give way.
The amplitude sits in が, not in the 濁点 as such — ぶるぶる carries one too and still shakes finely. Open が lets the whole joint go; closed ぶ keeps the shaking at the skin. がたがた shakes just as coarsely, but a thing — a window, a cart, a rickety table — and it rattles while it does; がくがく is about the joints of a living body.
Examples
- 下り坂で膝が笑い、がくがくと大きく震えた。Going downhill, my knees buckled and shook.
- 面接前、膝が大きくがくがくして止まらない。Before the interview, my knees won't stop shaking.
ふらふら · to be unsteady
Legs that will not hold you, a head full of fog.
Voiceless ふ describes a person who cannot stay upright. What all the uses of this word share is that nothing is settled — not the step (足元が定まらない), not the direction (目的もなくふらふらする), not the intention (気持ちがふらふらする). That is why ふらふら fits a fever, plain tiredness and aimless wandering alike. The neighbour on the other side, くらくら, names the sensation in the head itself: the room turns, everything goes dark. Both can end with you crouching down, so losing your footing does not divide the two — what divides them is that with くらくら the room spins, while with ふらふら nothing is settled at all. Its neighbour よろよろ sits inside it: it speaks only of walking with a body that has no strength left, and in that one scene both words fit — but よろよろ covers neither dizziness nor aimless wandering. Voiced ぶらぶら carries the same aimlessness over to a dangling object or an idle stroll.
Examples
- 高い熱で頭がぼうっとし、体がふらふらする。High fever, foggy head: I'm swaying on my feet.
- 酔って頭がぼうっとし、足元がふらふらだ。Drunk and foggy-headed, I'm unsteady on my feet.
じんじん · to go numb and tingle, pulsing long after
Numbness that pulses and burns.
The 濁点 in じ makes the sensation deep and diffuse. Plain しんしん drifted off to weather and silence. What separates it from びりびり is time: びりびり jolts once and is gone, while じんじん stays long after the cause. What separates it from ずきずき is the kind of sensation: ずきずき is pain itself, じんじん is numbness that happens to pulse.
Examples
- 冷えた指を温めると、じんじんとしびれてくる。As I warm my frozen fingers, they start to tingle.
- 爆音のあと、耳がまだじんじんとしびれている。After the blast my ears still tingle, numb.
ぞくぞく · to shiver again and again (cold, dread)
A chill down the back: fever or horror.
There is no plain そくそく in this sense, so the 濁点 settles nothing here — and neither does the shiver itself: ぞくぞく can be pleasant (楽しみでぞくぞくする). This card teaches the other one, from cold and from horror. A chill runs, it does not shake: ぶるぶる is a visible trembling of the body, while ぞくぞく goes down the back and need not show on you at all. ぞっと passes through once and is over at once; ぞくぞく keeps coming back in waves.
Examples
- 風邪で寒気がし、背筋が何度もぞくぞくする。A cold: chills keep running down my spine.
- 怪談のあと、ぞくぞくと鳥肌が立ちっぱなしだ。The ghost story left me with goosebumps nonstop.
ひくひく · to twitch faintly
A nose, the corner of a mouth or the throat twitching on its own.
Voiceless ひ keeps the movement microscopic and neutral. The 濁点 form びくびく would turn a muscle twitch into a person's fear.
Examples
- においを嗅ごうと、鼻が小さくひくひくする。My nose twitches faintly as I sniff the smell.
- 笑いをこらえ、口元がひくひくと小刻みに震えた。As I held back a laugh, my lips twitched.
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