Grammar Info

N4 Lesson 1: 5/18

どんどんProgressively, Rapidly increasing, More and more

どんどん - Swift change, だんだん - Gradual change

Structure

どんどん + （と） + Phrase

Details

  • Register

    Standard

About どんどん

どんどん (or ドンドン) is one of the countless words in Japanese that represent a particular sound or sensation. These words are known as onomatopoeia (オノマトペ in Japanese). どんどん represents the sound of banging (like on a drum), or the pounding of feet. In this way, it is regularly translated as 'rapidly', or 'quickly'.

Like だんだん, どんどん may be used before almost any phrase.

While どんどん can take the particle と, it is not required. In fact, と is very often omitted from adverbs/onomatopoeic words in Japanese.

Caution

Initially, it can be easy to mix-up どんどん, with だんだん. だんだん is used to express slower changes, and may be thought of as similar to 'steadily', or 'step by step' in English.

  • 毎日(まいにち)ピアノを練習(れんしゅう)しているから、だんだんピアノが上手(じょうず)になってきた。
    Because I practice the piano everyday, I have steadily gotten better at playing. (Slow progression)
  • 毎日(まいにち)ピアノを練習(れんしゅう)しているから、どんどんピアノが上手(じょうず)になってきた。
    Because I practice the piano everyday, I have rapidly gotten better at playing. (Rapid progression)

Fun Fact

When the と particle is used with onomatopoeic words, it is very similar to one of と's main usages as a quotation marker in Japanese. This means that と has a similar role to words like 'went', or 'goes' in English. For example, In English, we would say:

The door 'goes' BANG with the wind.

However, the door doesn't actually 'go' anywhere. This is similar to what と is doing here.

Examples

--:--

    どんどん暑(あつ)くなる。

    It will progressively get warmer and warmer.

    どんどん日本語(にほんご)が上手(じょうず)になりたい。

    I want to progressively get better at Japanese.

    日本(にほん)の人口(じんこう)がどんどん減(へ)る。

    The Japanese population will rapidly decrease.

    音(おと)がどんどん大(おお)きくなる。

    The sound will get louder and louder.

    彼女(かのじょ)がどんどん綺麗(きれい)になる。

    She will progressively get prettier.

  • Get more example sentences!

    Premium users get access to 12 example sentences on all Grammar Points.

Self-Study Sentences

Study your own way!

Add sentences and study them alongside Bunpro sentences.

どんどん – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (6 in total)

  • testing

    testing

    Thanks for those explanations! I feel like they point me in the right direction, but I’m not sure how to differentiate between “steadily” and “rapidly”.

    E.g., どんどん日本語が上手になりたい。( I want to steadily get better at Japanese.)

    If someone tells me that they want to “steadily” get better at it, it feels like “consistent change”, but not necessarily fast. But does どんどん日本語が上手になりたい。 always have the connotations of both “consistently” and “quickly” at the same time? How would I know which one? It feels like most contexts would make both equally likely.

    Same problem with 日本の人口がどんどん減る。(The Japanese population will steadily decrease.)

    After reading the Japanese sentence, I would’ve expected it to decrease rapidly, but from the English sentence I would expect it to be constant, but not super quick.

  • Kirumi

    Kirumi

    If I put だんだん as the answer it says it’s wrong:

    image699×326 17.5 KB
  • IcyIceBear

    IcyIceBear

    Did you file a bug report during the review? Those get checked better than here

Got questions about どんどん? Join us to discuss, ask, and learn together!

Join the Discussion