oops, forgot about tags, just added, thanks for the reminder. ^_^

yeah, I'm having trouble with the casual style and can't bring out all the subtle expressions. They didn't teach me all these in intro Japanese! and the online dictionaries and translators aren't much help. T_T

totally agree with you on sound words, I have yet to find a good source with a comprehensive list of them and what they mean. do you know of any?

hehe, I think my brain just spazzed on kyuun and added two dots to the ki and took out the n so it became something like gyuu, *lol*