On the relationship between image

and text in manga

Insights from one Giancarla Unser-Schutz

Rissho University
morpheme analysis giancarlaunserschutz@ris.ac.jp

1
Overview
Aim: Evaluate relationship between text and visual elements in
manga, or Japanese comics
 Will use Japanese manga as a base
Basic question: How closely is text tied to image?
 I.e.., how reduplicative is text of the images?
Present linguistic data from manga corpus project
 Preliminary analysis of word frequency
 Types of words seen may suggest more/less concrete relationship

2
Why manga?
The size of the market
 Constitute up to 40% of all published materials by some accounts (Schodt 1996)
Their importance abroad
 Widely translated/influential (Goldberg 2010; Lent 2010; Malone 2010; Wong 2010)
 Common motivating factor for learning Japanese (Kumano 2010)
Sophistication as medium
 Largeness of market has allowed for great maturity
 Language important to development as a medium (Ōtsuka 1994; Takeuchi 2005)
To examine this→Constructed corpus of 10 popular series
 First three volumes, 5 shōnen (boys)- and shōjo (girls)-manga each
 Aimed to evaluate the linguistic characteristics of manga
 Selected for popularity→Sales rankings, high school students surveys
 Sample→Appendix 1
3
Text in comics
Comics as the epitome of mixed visual/verbal media
 Language often down-played in research in favor of visual
 McCloud (1994): text is ‘iconic’ element part of the visual repertoire
 Groensteen (2007): development of new visual-narrative forms have eclipsed
linguistic-narrative
“I just can’t believe it”
But clearly important
 Wordless comics require more visual competency (Beronä 2001)
 May not be suitable for mass-market
 Language can be main point of difference within comic genres
 Ōtsuka (1994) on reflexive ‘internal’ text in manga

Nakayama, A. (2002). Rabu★Kon. 2:22. 4

 Verbal and visual in monomodal texts
Monomodal mediums necessarily require everything to be
expressed using same mode
Implies that they are used for roles they are less 'suited' for, e.g.,
Language for roles beyond conversation
 Descriptive text for place and action
→Narration in novels
Visual elements for roles beyond description
Drawings, etc. for encounters/interaction
→Symbolism/iconicity in wordless comics
5
 Verbal and visual in multimodal
texts
In a dual-mode medium like comics, modes can be used
① To express completely independent aspects of the narration
→‘Independent’ types
② To both express the same aspects in-parallel
→‘Parallel’ types
③ Or some combination therein
Differ in they way and kind of information they present
 Independent types = Both modes offer new information
 Parallel types = Modes ‘repeat’ each other → Reduplicative?

6
Text types in comics and project
Language can be used in many different ways in manga/comics
 Construction of the corpus led to 8 major types
 Followed Groensteen (2007), Kai (1989)→Visuals, writing, linguistic forms
Relationship with images depends on text type
 Onomatopoeia→Compliment scenes = Add ‘sound’ or atmosphere
 Thoughts→Internal text = By nature generally disconnected
Majority are conversational Lines (~73%)
 The focus of this presentation
 Next→Look at redundancy in Lines
7
Categories - 1
Text
Category Environment Characteristics characters
▪Unbroken speech bubbles ▪Audible information ▪Primarily dialogue
Lines 499,968
▪Usually typed text ▪Usually typed text
▪Dot-tailed speech bubbles, etc. ▪Characters‘ inner voices ▪Are not audible
Thoughts 92,483
▪Usually typed text ▪Usually typed text
▪Square captions ▪Information on plot development, location
Narration 13,658
▪Usually typed text ▪Often features privileged information
Onomatopoeia ▪Stylized, graphic text ▪Describe the nature or atmosphere of a scene 31,443
Background ▪Part of drawing ▪Text written as a part of the scene, such as
22,699
text ▪Graphically incorporated advertisements, building names, etc.
Background ▪On background, ▪Secondary lines or thoughts
22,831
lines/thoughts w/ or w/o straight lines ▪Jokes, criticisms or non-essential information
▪On background w/ or w/o arrows ▪Notes or jokes about characters or items
Comments 2,556
▪Generally handwritten ▪Privileged information about the scenes
Titles ▪In captions on background ▪Type ▪Chapter/series titles; authors' names. 2,704

8
 Categories - 2

Yazawa, A. (2000). Nana. 3:100.

Shīna, K. (2009). Kimi ni Todoke.1:133 9

 Independent
Original
(1), (2) only incidentally related
(3) only onomatopoeic text
(4) continues (2)/play on (3)’s action
Text=Complimentary
Different mode, different information 1 2 3 4

Defining reduplication in Lines

LET’S TAKE A WALK! I’M
SITTING I’M
SITTING
TOO!
I KISSED
HIM Parallel
HE KISSED
ME!
Reduplicative rewrite
(1), (2) describe current conditions (3)
only onomatopoeic text
(4) describe activities of (3)
Text=Identical
1 2 3 4 Different mode, same information
Watterson, B. (1986). Calvin and Hobbes. January 2, 1986. 10
Different types of comics – 1
Can define each type by complexity of modes’ Novels
interaction and burden to interpret Verbal
language
maximally
exploited
Wordless Parallel Independent
Visual language Visual and verbal Modalities’ Sophisticated
maximally express identical relationship linguistic skills
exploited information complex necessary

Greater freedom Little burden on Skill required to

of interpretation readers to interpret final
for readers interpret narrative product

11
Different types – 2
LET’S TAKE A WALK!

Low Freedom of interpretation High

Parallel Independent Wordless

Low Potential [linguistic] difficulties for readers High

↑Wordless ↓ ↑Parallel↓ ↑Independent↓

Low Complexity of relationship between visual/verbal modes High

LET’S TAKE A WALK!

Which of these types are more

common?
12
Verbal independence in manga
Verbal independence can be seen as a characteristic of modern story-
oriented manga (Takeuchi 2005)
 Useful in developing complexity in relationship between modes
 Exploits full-potential of each mode
 Each mode can be utilized for what they are best equipped for
 Combination can allow for depth; manipulation through juxtaposition; etc.
Downsides for some readers
 Manga often said to be easy to read because of their visuals (Murakami & Bryce 2009)
 But Liu (2004): Comics with low visual/verbal correlation were more difficult for English as a
second language learners
 Complex relationship requires manga literacy (Ingulsrud & Allen 2009; Nakazawa 2005)
Question: How are these tensions played out?
13
Testing for reduplication?
Vocabulary used may hint at amount of reduplication
 Analysis of relationship within each frame not very realistic, but frequent words
can hints at topics, content (Leech & Fallon 1992)
 Concrete actions/objects may correlate to drawings more
 Grammatical complexity may imply interactions difficult to express visually
Conducted morpheme analysis = word frequency
 Used ChaMame, UniDic and MeCab to parse Lines 260,906 words (shōjo-
manga: 108,798, shōnen-manga:152,148)
 121,468 free-standing words that may be relevant to content
Next→Review
 Lexical make-up (parts of speech)
 Sentence structure
 Most commonly seen nouns, adjectives, nouns and verbs
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 Nouns Verbs Adjectival forms Adverbs Adnominals Conjunctions Interjections

Lexical Manga

Spoken
40.90%
49.27%

24.40%
24.15%

7.80%
7.58%

12.20%
6.32%

3.80%
8.08%

9.40%

make-up
language (1)

Blogs (2) 44.20% 31.45% 8.10% 10.40%

Newspaper
55.50% 31.60% 5.60% 3.90%
letters (3)

Compared with Dictionary (5) 89.57% 6.37%

primarily monomodal 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

texts, manga differs

mainly in its use of interjections (8.08%) “Huh?”

A commonality with spoken language (9.4%)

Realism and conversational nature of Lines
May also be similar to the use of onomatopoeia?
Complimentary to visuals
Natural sounds to create atmosphere, sense of action
(1): Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyujo (1955) in Hayashi, Miyajima, Nomura, Egawa, Nakano, Sanada, and Satake (1982); 15
(2): Kishimoto (2008); (3): Nakano (1976) in Hayashi et al (1982); (5): Matsui (1979) in Hayashi et al (1982) f
 Sorachi, H. (2004). GinTama. 3:19.
“An explosion in
the warehouse!!”

Sentence structure
Necessary information sometimes put into Lines from Narration
(Allen & Ingulsrud 2007)
 May suggest Lines are often like the descriptive text of Narration
However: 34.59% of verbs/adjectives in predicative form
 Average 0.67 per speech bubble=Large % are fragments
 Complete endings in novels: quotations=36.0%, narration=87.0%
(Nishimura 2011)

Fragmentary speech may be characteristic of manga

 Lines are much more common than quotations in novels
 Require interpretative skill to process; clear correlation unlikely
16
100 frequent nouns: Appendix 2
6,873 nouns obtained in total, over 66,302 instances
 Average #s: 9.64; standard deviation=46.41
Very few represented concrete objects
 5 of the top 100 (te ‘hand’; heya ‘room’)
Large number were names/honorifics (19) and pronouns (6)
 Words about people in general (sensei ‘teacher’, onna ‘woman’) were common
 Talking about and describing people?
→Cannot tell if they are people in the scenes or not
Several had grammatical functions implying complexity
 E.g., wake ‘reason’—often used with embedded sentences, similar to pronouns
 Many also potential adverbs, adjectives, etc. 17
100 frequent adjectives: Appendix 3
510 adjectives obtained in total, over 9,478 instances
 Average #s: 18.58; standard deviation=108.94
3 of the top-100 have unique grammatical roles
 Nai (not); yoi (good); hoshii (want)
 These three alone accounted for 35.56%
Some clearly show grammatical complexity
 Adjectives used to report indirect information common (you; mitai; sou)
 Suggests embedded structures are common
Only 8 represent physical appearances
 Most express states (kowai ‘scared’) or emotions (ureshii ‘happy’) 18
100 frequent verbs: Appendix 4
1,555 verbs obtained in total, over 29,388 instances
 Average #s: 18.90; standard deviation=120.74
Large percentage (32) were potential auxiliaries
 Iru ‘to be’, iku ‘to go’
Several (11) could be used with embedded sentences and quotations
 5 out of the top 15
Both points suggest there are a large number of fairly long sentences
 Many would imply complex verb strings and dependent clauses
Otherwise, tops were mainly generic action verbs—in order. . .
 korosu ‘to kill’, chigau ‘to differ’, hairu ‘to enter’, shinu ‘to die’, deru ‘to leave’
19
100 frequent adverbs: Appendix 5
468 adverbs obtained in total, over 7,831 instances
 Average #s: 16.73; standard deviation=65.96
Most common form was sō ‘that (way)’
 Often used like ‘yes’; partially accounts for its high frequency?
The hedge nan-ka also common, especially in shoujo-manga
 Said to be similar in usage to the characteristics of young girls’ speech patterns
(Īo 2006)

Several (7+) straddle line between adverbs and interjections

 Ex.: mō as the adverb ‘already’ and a interjection showing one’s displeasure
 Not always clear: less stable class, often discourse markers (Fraser 1996)
 Rate might actually be higher
20
In review
Frequent nouns, adjectives generally not very concrete
 Concrete nouns, adjectives may be more common among less
frequent words Somewhat
 If they reflect each scene, one would expect many additional words inconclusive?
to express them individually
 But does not take into account that many locations/actions are
repeated
Sentence structure and use of verbs, many of the
adjectives imply complex structure Suggests low
 Use of quotations, auxiliaries and embedded sentences = cannot be correlation
simply describing the action
 Fragments require readers to interpret and fill in gaps = indirect
Future work and conclusions
Not conclusive, but appears likely that reduplication is not common
 Supports Takeuchi’s (2005) argument on verbal-visual independence
 Categorizing words by internal characteristics may be fruitful
 Classes of verbs, noun types, etc.
Has implications for analyses of manga and their wider use
 Affects the skills necessary for reading manga
 Visual and verbal language skills alone insufficient
→How is the bridge gapped? How are these skills obtained?
 Affects their potential for use in educational environments
 Often seen as good resource for language study, but breaks rule of correlation
for ease of reading
Bibliography
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Beronä, D. A. (2001). Pictures speak in comics without words: Pictorial principles in the work of Milt Gross, Hendrik Dorgathen, Eric Drooker, & Peter Kuper. In R. G. Varnum, The Language of Comics: Word and Image. Jackson, MS:
University of Mississippi Press.
Fraser, B. (1996). Pramatic markers. Pragmatics, 6(2), 167-190.
Goldberg, W. (2010). The manga phenomenon in America. In T. Johnson-Woods, Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives (pp. 281-298). New York: Contiuum.
Groensteen, T. (2007). The System of Comics. (B. Beaty, & N. Nguyen, Trans.) Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Hayashi, O., Miyajima, T., Nomura, M., Egawa, K., Nakano, H., Sanada, S., & Satake, H. (1982). Zusestsu no Nihongo. Tokyo: Kadokawa-shoten.
Īo, M. (2006). A study of the discourse marker nanka in junior college students’ daily language. The Toyo Review, (38), 67-77.
Ingulsrud, J., & Allen, K. (2009). Reading Japan Cool: Patterns of Manga Literacy and Discourse. Plymouth, MA: Lexington Books.
Kai, M. (1989). Manga no kotoba: Mondai teiki. Nihongo-gaku, (9), 33-38.
Kishimoto, C. (2008). Webu-nikki ni mirareru hanashi-kotoba-teki buntai. Nihongo-gaku, 27(5), 168-176.
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Leech, G., & Fallon, R. (1992). Computer corpora: What do they tell us about culture? ICAME Journal, (16), 1-22.
Lent, J. (2010). Manga in East Asia. In T. Johnson-Woods, Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives (pp. 297-314). New York: Contiuum.
Liu, J. (2004). Effects of comic strips on L2 learners' reading comprehension. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 225-243.
Malone, P. (2010). The manga publishing scene in Europe. In T. Johnson-Woods, Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives (pp. 315-331). New York: Contiuum.
McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Paperbacks.
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Nakazawa, J. (2005). Development of manga (comic book) literacy in children. In D. W. Shwalb, J. Nakazawa, & B. J. Shwalb, Applied Developmental Psychology: Theory, Practice an Research from Japan (pp. 23-42). Greenwich,
United States: Information Age Publishing.
Nishimura, Y. (2011). Japanese keitai novels and ideologies of literacy. In C. Thurlow, & K. Mroczek, Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media (pp. 86-109). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ōtsuka, E. (1994). Sengo-manga no Hyōgen Kûkan: Kigōteki Shintai no Jubaku. Kyoto: Hōzōkan.
Schodt, F. L. (1996). Dreamland Japan: Writings on modern manga. Berkeley: Stone Bridge.
Takeuchi, O. (2005). Manga-gaku nyûmon. Tokyo: Chikumashobo.
Unser-Schutz, G. (2011). Developing a text-based corpus of the language of Japanese comics (manga). In S. Rice, H. Baayen, & J. Newman, Corpus-based Studies in Language Documentation, Use, and Learning Corpus-based Studies
in Language Documents (pp. 213-238). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
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Wong, W. S. (2010). Globalizing manga: from Japan to Hong Kong and beyond. In T. Johnson-Woods, Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives (pp. 332-350). New York: Contiuum.
 Appendix 1 - Sample
Genre Japanese title English title Author Magazine Publisher Start Finish
Bokura ga Ita We Were There Obata, Yuki BetsuKomi Shogakukan 10/2002 2/2012
Shōjo-manga

Kimi ni Todoke From Me To You Shīna, Karuho Bessatsu Margaret Shueisha 9/2005 ―
Nana Nana Yazawa, Ai Cookie Shueisha 10/1999 ―
Nodame Cantabile Nodame Cantabile Ninomiya, Tomoko Kiss Kodansha 7/2001 10/2009
Rabu★Kon Love Com Nakahara, Aya Bessatsu Margaret Shueisha 9/2001 12/2006
Ohba, Tsugumi; Obata,
Death Note Death Note Shōnen Jump Shueisha 12/2003 5/2006
Shōnen-manga

Takeshi
GinTama Gin Tama Sorachi, Hideaki Shōnen Jump Shueisha 12/2003 ―
Meitantei Konan Case Closed Aoyama, Gōshō Shōnen Sunday Shogakukan 1/1994 ―
Naruto Naruto Kishimoto, Masashi Shōnen Jump Shueisha 11/1999 ―
One Piece One Piece Oda, Ei'ichirō Shōnen Jump Shueisha 8/1997 ―
24
Appendix 2 - 100 most frequent nouns
Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes #
1 事 thing Grammatical function 1419 34 サダコ Sadako Name 192 67 度 (times) Non-independent suffix 123
2 さん (san) Honorific 1165 35 一緒 together Potential compound verbs 190 68 伯父 uncle 120
3 ちゃん (chan) Honorific 603 36 者 (person) Non-independent suffix 189 69 つ (number) Non-independent suffix 119
4 等 (plural marker) Non-independent suffix 465 37 一人 single, alone Potential adverb 188 70 リサ Risa Name 119
5 君 (kun) Honorific 457 38 御免 sorry Grammatical function 187 71 方 (way) Non-independent suffix 117
6 人 person 447 39 為 reason, purpose Potential adverb 187 72 父 father 116
7 物 thing 425 40 二 two Number 177 73 金 money Object 114
8 今 now Potential adverb 407 41 女 woman 176 74 ノダメ Nodame Name 113
9 奴 him/her/it Pronoun 372 42 目 eye Non-independent suffix 175 75 ナルト Naruto Name 110
10 一 one Number 367 43 チアキ Chiaki Name 168 76 野郎 guy, man Pronoun 109
11 キラ Killer Name 351 44 駄目 bad, no good Potential adjective 165 77 仕事 work Potential compound verbs 108
12 達 (plural marker) Non-independent suffix 316 45 別 separate Potential adjective 164 78 友達 friend 104
13 馬鹿 stupid Potential adjective 293 46 先輩 upperclassman 161 79 中 inside Potential grammatical role 104
14 本当 real, true Potential adjective 288 47 三 three Number 160 80 格好 style, look 103
15 気 feeling 272 48 警察 police 159 81 時間 time Potential adverb 101
16 時 time Potential adverb 271 49 後 after, later Potential adverb 155 82 餓鬼 kid 100
17 男 man 268 50 ショウジ Shōji Name 153 83 日本 Japan Place 100
18 ナナ Nana Name 260 51 子 child 149 84 家 house Object 97
19 前 front Potential adverb 258 52 名前 name 148 85 シンイチ Shin'ichi Name 91
20 皆 everyone Pronoun 251 53 手 hand Object 146 86 ライト Light Name 90
21 様 (sama) Honorific 246 54 二人 two people Potential adverb 146 87 一 one Number 89
22 訳 reason, meaning Grammatical function 242 55 人 (person) Non-independent suffix 144 88 息子 son 89
23 ヤノ Yano Name 239 56 先生 teacher 144 89 侭 as-is Potential adverb 87
24 所 place Potential pronoun 231 57 部屋 room Object 141 90 オケストラ orchestra 85
25 今日 today Potential adverb 224 58 顔 face Object 140 91 爺 old man 85
26 先 before, ahead Potential adverb 217 59 年 year Non-independent suffix 136 92 変 strange Potential adjective 85
27 オオタニ Ōtani Name 207 60 犯人 culprit 136 93 通り way Potential adverb 84
28 話 story Potential compound verbs 203 61 カゼハヤ Kazehaya Name 135 94 ゾロ Zoro Name 81
29 海賊 pirate 202 62 捜査 investigation Potential compound verbs 135 95 他 other/another Pronoun 81
30 自分 one's self Pronoun 201 63 絶対 absolute Potential adverb 134 96 昨日 yesterday Potential adverb 80
31 方 way Grammatical function 200 64 事件 incident 131 97 さ (nouns) Non-independent suffix 80
32 エル L Name 194 65 者 person 126 98 阿呆 stupid Potential adjective 79
33 人間 human 194 66 嘘 lie 124 99 以上 above Potential adverb 79
100 コイズミ Koizumi Name 78
25
Appendix 3 - 100 most frequent adjectives
Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes #
1 無い not Non-independent 1927 34 でかい huge Appearance 45 67 当然 natural 19
2 良い good Non-independent 1374 35 嬉しい happy 44 68 ばらばら all over 19
3 様 like, way Potential auxiliary 317 36 やばい dangerous 43 69 美しい beautiful Appearance 18
4 悪い bad 266 37 大事 important 42 70 可哀想 sad, pathetic 18
5 凄い great 246 38 臭い smelly Suffix 41 71 汚い dirty Appearance 18
6 好き like, favorite 224 39 簡単 easy 40 72 正しい right 18
7 みたい like, way Potential auxiliary 217 40 優しい nice 34 73 恥ずかしい embarassing 18
8 嫌 disgusting 181 41 長い long Appearance 33 74 忙しい busy 17
9 そう like, way Potential auxiliary 177 42 危ない dangerous 32 75 十分 enough 17
10 早い early 174 43 甘い sweet, spoiled 32 76 素敵 wonderful 17
11 大丈夫 OK, fine 168 44 多い many 32 77 辛い tough 17
12 そんな like that 136 45 奇麗 pretty Appearance 32 78 不味い disgusting 17
13 怖い scary, scared 107 46 大切 important 31 79 宜しい good 17
14 可愛い cute Appearance 103 47 らしい (appears) Suffix 31 80 大人しい calm 16
15 甘い tasty 98 48 新しい new 30 81 悲しい sad 16
16 まじ serious 90 49 易い (easy) Suffix 29 82 寒い cold 16
17 面白い interesting 80 50 寂しい lonely 28 83 特別 special 16
18 煩い loud, annoying 74 51 こんな like this 27 84 難い (difficult) Suffix 16
19 強い strong 69 52 ぽい (appears, like) Suffix 25 85 余計 unwanted 16
20 欲しい want Non-independent 69 53 美味しい tasty 24 86 完全 complete 15
21 小さい small 68 54 大きい big 24 87 どんな like how? 15
22 的 (nouns) Suffix 62 55 過ぎ (too much) Suffix 23 88 真面目 serious 15
23 確か certain 61 56 大好き love 23 89 若い young Appearance 15
24 可能 possible 60 57 久しい long time 23 90 意外 unexpected 14
25 大変 tough 57 58 怪しい suspicious 22 91 重い heavy 14
26 酷い terrible 54 59 少ない few 22 92 器用 skillful 14
27 痛い painful 53 60 弱い weak 22 93 爽やか refreshing 14
28 可笑しい strange 52 61 当たり前 natural 21 94 仕方無い no choice 14
29 高い tall Appearance 52 62 上手い skilled 20 95 近い close 14
30 楽しい fun 50 63 同じ same 20 96 遠い far 14
31 あんな like that 49 64 難しい difficult 20 97 必死 desperate 14
32 偉い admireable 47 65 恐ろしい terrifying 19 98 珍しい rare 14
33 遅い late 45 66 詳しい detailed 19 99 喧しい loud, annoying 14
100 安い cheap 14
26
Appendix 4 - 100 most frequent verbs
Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes #
1 為る to do Potential auxiliary 3497 34 仕舞う to finish Potential auxiliary 121 67 過ぎる to be over Potential auxiliary 64
2 言う to speak Quotations 1662 35 食う to eat 118 68 泣く to cry 63
3 居る to be Potential auxiliary 1183 36 置く to put down Potential auxiliary 116 69 戻る to return 61
4 成る to become Potential auxiliary 980 37 知れる to be known Quotations 112 70 変わる to change 60
5 来る to come Potential auxiliary 953 38 居る to be Potential auxiliary 106 71 決まる to decide 59
6 遣る to give Potential auxiliary 896 39 作る to make 105 72 信ずる to believe Quotations 58
7 有る to be, have Potential auxiliary 887 40 頑張る to do one's best 100 73 要る to need 58
8 行く to go Potential auxiliary 761 41 掛ける to hang Potential auxiliary 99 74 見付ける to find 57
9 見る to see Potential auxiliary 661 42 見える to be able to see 98 75 助ける to help 57
10 思う to think Quotations 555 43 付く to be put on Potential auxiliary 96 76 落ちる to fall down 56
11 分かる to understand Quotations 509 44 上げる to give Potential auxiliary 94 77 覚える to remember 55
12 呉れる to give Potential auxiliary 495 45 逃げる to run away 94 78 見付かる to be found 54
13 聞く to hear Quotations 345 46 会う to meet Potential auxiliary 93 79 御座る to have Potential auxiliary 54
14 知る to know Quotations 342 47 呼ぶ to call Quotations 93 80 笑う to laugh 53
15 出来る to be able Potential auxiliary 317 48 買う to buy 92 81 捨てる to throw away 52
16 殺す to kill 295 49 入れる to put in 90 82 終わる to end Potential auxiliary 52
17 違う to differ 273 50 食べる to eat 85 83 乗る to ride 52
18 入る to enter 264 51 切る to cut Potential auxiliary 84 84 戦う to fight 52
19 死ぬ to die 233 52 守る to protect 83 85 困る to be troubled 51
20 貰う to receive Potential auxiliary 232 53 話す to speak Quotations 83 86 止める to stop 51
21 出る to leave 226 54 探す to search 82 87 決める to decide 50
22 持つ to own, hold 222 55 見せる to see Potential auxiliary 80 88 得る to gain Potential auxiliary 49
23 待つ to wait 214 56 送る to give 80 89 立つ to stand 49
24 帰る to return 210 57 寝る to sleep 79 90 頂く to receive Potential auxiliary 48
25 下さる to give Potential auxiliary 188 58 付き合う to go out 79 91 連れる to take with 48
26 考える to think Quotations 177 59 動く to move 75 92 願う to wish Potential auxiliary 46
27 為さる to do Potential auxiliary 157 60 忘れる to forget Potential auxiliary 75 93 弾く to play, shoot 46
28 止める to stop 142 61 書く to write Quotations 74 94 怒る to be angry 46
29 取る to take 142 62 生きる to live 73 95 返す to return 46
30 付ける to put on Potential auxiliary 136 63 頼む to request 73 96 明く to be bright 46
31 出す to take out Potential auxiliary 131 64 教える to teach Quotations 68 97 気付く to realize 45
32 使う to use 125 65 喋る to talk 68 98 負ける to lose 43
33 済む to finish 123 66 飲む to drink 66 99 掛かる to hang on Potential auxiliary 42
100 拠る to be due to 42
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Appendix 5 - 100 most frequent adverbs
Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes # Rank Word Meaning Notes #
1 そう like that 999 34 唯 only 48 67 せめて at least 20
2 もう already Interjection 535 35 一体 on earth 47 68 どうでも anyway 19
3 どう how 525 36 多分 probably 47 69 迚も very 19
4 何で why 368 37 結構 pretty, very 46 70 暫く a while 18
5 一寸 a little Interjection 353 38 色々 various 44 71 随分 pretty, very 18
6 未だ not yet 217 39 そろそろ soon 43 72 既に already 18
7 矢張り after all 207 40 兎に角 anyway 43 73 はっきり clear 18
8 又 again 170 41 初めて first 43 74 余程 really, very 18
9 良く often 163 42 勿論 of course 42 75 さっさと quickly 17
10 なんか like (hedge) 137 43 どうぞ please Interjection 37 76 偶に sometimes 16
11 こう like this 113 44 成る程 I see Interjection 35 77 仲良く friendly 16
12 直ぐ immediately 111 45 何とか somehow 35 78 なんて like (hedge) 16
13 ちゃんと right, straight 107 46 目茶 very 35 79 丸で completely 16
14 もっと more 107 47 恐らく probably 34 80 漸と finally 16
15 まさか not possible 93 48 後 later Suffix 34 81 何時も always 15
16 一番 number one 89 49 確り tightly 33 82 仮令 even if 15
17 ずっと always 85 50 態々 make effort 32 83 とっとと finally 15
18 急度 for sure 73 51 可成 pretty, very 31 84 ああ like that 14
19 全然 at all 73 52 必ず for sure 29 85 偶々 coincidently 14
20 少し a little 70 53 どうか somehow 27 86 精々 at most 13
21 まあ well Interjection 69 54 宜しく please 27 87 直接 straight 13
22 全く at all 66 55 行成 suddenly 26 88 より more than 13
23 詰まり that is to say 64 56 今更 now, late 25 89 相変わらず as always 13
24 中 in the middle 61 57 つい finally 25 90 おいおい after a while Interjection 12
25 余り not very 59 58 幾ら how many 24 91 更に more 12
26 どうして why 57 59 確か certain 23 92 早速 quickly, fast 11
27 若し if 56 60 特に especially 23 93 沢山 many 11
28 流石 just like them 54 61 例えば for example 21 94 共 together 11
29 先ず first 54 62 丁度 exactly 21 95 どんどん steady 11
30 何故 why 52 63 どうも somehow Interjection 21 96 何せ anyway 11
31 どうせ either way 50 64 中々 pretty, very 21 97 何だか somehow 11
32 取り敢えず for now 49 65 若しかして maybe 21 98 最も in the first place 11
33 折角 effortful 48 66 一杯 full, lots 20 99 いっそ rather 10
100 所詮 after all 10
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