I was wondering if anyone had an excel spreadsheet or could refer me to a good book that teaches mimetic phrases. Example: フワフワ = fluffy; airy. It's pretty difficult for me to pick up on those and I was wondering if anyone had anything like a spreadsheet. Or is it something I should really study? Is it something that I will will just pick up on? I would like to know them though I think they're pretty funny and cool

There are loads of these words, and they're used all the time in all kinds of speech/writing. They often don't translate easily, many of them sound similar and have similar meanings, and there's no kanji to help you distinguish or remember them. They sink in after a while though, I guess...

[Katsuo]

I made a Google spreadsheet. Check out this thread for links. And this thread has more discussion on the subject.

I tend to think these are better learned by gradually dribbling them in among the other words you're learning (ie don't ignore them but don't binge on them either). As Javizy says, there are an awful lot of them and I think if you try to deal with too many all at once it's quite easy for them all to just get mixed up together.

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the help.

These are words where monolingual dictionaries help quite a bit since, as was stated, those kinds of words are quite hard to translate.

Personally, I just mine them like any other word.

here's one thing that has helped me.

you'll find many of these words not in a dictionary
however, a lot of them are just altered versions of another mimetic phrase or whatever

the "/tenten denotes something stronger where as the circle/o on kana means it is weaker. (Yeah I know, sounds like it should be the opposite)