No. 1,501 in Japanese
そろそろ
"そろそろ" means "soon," "it's about time," or "gradually."
In a sentence
そろそろ晩ご飯の時間ですね。
It's about time for dinner.
Here, 'そろそろ' is used to indicate that something is anticipated to happen soon.
そろそろ帰らないといけません。
I should be going soon.
In this case, 'そろそろ' expresses that the action to leave needs to occur in the near future.
そろそろ雨が降りそうですね。
It looks like it might rain soon.
Here, 'そろそろ' conveys the expectation of an event (raining) happening shortly.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “そろそろ” in actual Japanese podcasts.
Find “そろそろ” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Japanese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into 日本語, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Japanese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).