In Japanese, we use so many onomatopoeia. It almost works as adverb in our language and in my opinion, onomatopoeia is the key to make your Japanese more lively. 

For example, when you knock the door, we knock the door ton ton (とんとん). But this case, you knock the door gently. Now imagine, a police found the base of a criminal. "Police! Open the door!" then roughly knock the door. In this case, the police knocks the door don don (どんどん).

Like this we know the strength and the sound of the action. Now, onomatopoeia in Japanese tends to be repeated the same sound twice. Ton ton, don don, kon kon, pori pori etc…

Today I introduce some onomatopoeia using one of the greatest Japanese poets, Mado Michio (まどみちお).

The poem is called, "Tenpura Piri Piri (てんぷらぴりぴり)".

Tenpura is tempura as you probably know and piri piri is the sound of frying tempura.

Actually I´d never thought about the sound of frying tempura before this poem and now I think Mado Michio is right. He must´ve invented that sound.

The fruits of perilla are like these. I don´t know if you can call these fruits. More like seeds as I can see. They come out in autumn and people would eat them. I´ve never eaten them in tempura but it should be cruncy and slightly sour/pinchy taste, I can imagine. As far as I remember it tastes like umeboshi (梅干し), Japanese pickled plum. 

Now you can hear the actual sound of frying tempura. After reading this poem, I can really hear the sound of piri piri. Can´t you?

Let´s practice this onomatopoeia, piri piri.

To fry is "ageru (揚げる)" and to fry tempura is "tenpura wo ageru (てんぷらを揚げる)". Then I ask you, "how do you fry tempura?"

You go,

"Tenpura wo piri piri ageru (てんぷらをぴりぴり揚げる)".

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Onomatopoeia with Taro Gomi

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Katakana