Today I discovered that one way to say thunder in Japanese is ごろごろ様 (gorogoro sama) or literally “Mr(s) Rumbling”.

ごろごろ / ゴロゴロ (gorogoro) is one of the many Japanese onomatopoeic / mimetic words that means rumbling (of thunder, one’s stomach, etc), grumbling, growling, purring, rolling (of sth large and heavy), tumbling, all over the place, everywhere, commonly, in great numbers, idly, lazily, slothfully, or the uncomfortable feeling of have a foreign substance in one’s eye, stomach, etc. [source].

Some examples of how it’s used include:

• 胃がごろごろ音をたてます。 (i ga gorogoro oto o tatemasu) = my stomach is rumbling
• 家でごろごろするのをやめて、何かすることを見つけなさい。 (ie de gorogoro suru no o yamete, nani ka suru koto o mitsukenasai) = stop being lazy and find something to do
• 目がゴロゴロします。 (me ga gorogoro shimasu) = my eyes feel gritty

Other words for thunder in Japanese include:

• 雷 (kaminari), which also means lightning, a thunderbolt, god of thunder, god of lightning, anger or a fit of anger. The kanji is consists of rain (雨) over a rice field / paddy (田).
• 鳴神 (narukami) or literally “sound of god”: 鳴 (naru) = chirp, cry, bark, sound, ring, echo, honk, and 神 (kami) = god, deity, divinty, spirit, incredible, fantastic, amazing, thunder

By the way, I’m going to Scotland tomorrow for a week of learning Scottish Gaelic songs at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye. Looking forward to it. During this time, there’ll be few, if any, up-dates to this site, blog posts or podcasts, and I probably won’t have time to answer all your emails. Things will be back to normal after I get back.