What does the (Korean) fox say?

   The thing that always surprises me while I’m learning a foreign language is how different the onomatopoeias in each language are. It seems that everyday objects surrounding us make the same sound in each part of the world. Cats, dogs and other animals always sound the same, regardless of the country they are currently in. The sound of doors banging, the sound of the rain, of car starting the engine… It all sounds the same in Poland, Korea and United States. So why do we create onomatopoeias that are sometime totally different? That is the aspect of language that always puzzled me.

   From the very young age we’re taught the sounds that are present around us. I’m pretty sure that every one of you is familiar with the picture/ scene of mother asking her child: “What does the kitty say?”,”What does the cow say?”. We all have seen in at least one in our lives, right? And after that question the kid happily answers… There we go, what is the kid’s answer? It all depends on the country. In Poland cats say “miau”. In England or US “meow”. Those sounds rather similar, right?      But in Korea cat says “yaong” and in Janpan “nyang”. Does it mean that cats all around the world speak different dialects? Not really. We just adapt the sound we hear to our language. 

   The Korean language contains many words that are based on onomatopoeias. Learning the onomatopoeic Korean words might sound like an easy way to improve your Korean ability, but it's not as easy as it might seem. This is because the sounds that Koreans associate with something can be very different from the sounds that English speakers associate with the same object or action. I said: can be very different, not IS very different. Because sometimes some sounds happen to be the same or quite the same. There are cases where the name of the object is created from the sound that object makes. Another particular thing about Korean onomatopoeias is that they are usually repeated, especially when it comes to sounds animal make. 


Let's look at some examples:

	English	Polish	Korean
dog	Woof woof	Hau hau	Mong-mong
Little bird	Tweet tweet	Ćwir ćwir	Biyak-biyak
pig	Oink Oink	Chrum Chrum	Ggul-ggul
sneeze	A-choo!	Apsik!	E-chui!
pain	Ouch!	Ała/ Auć!	Ayah!
rain	Drip drip drip	Kap kap	Ju-reuk ju-reuk
star	Twinkle twinkle	-	Ban-jak ban-jak

 Below you can find a picture, made by Dom and Hyo, showing many different sounds in Korean language. Check it out and try to find resembling words in your language!