Learn about describing animal sounds
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| INTRODUCTION |
| さくら: さくらです。 |
| Peter: Peter here. Onomatopoeia lesson 2. Japanese Animal Sounds. |
| さくら: はい。 |
| Peter: Sakura-san, |
| さくら: Onomatopoeiaです |
| Peter: I think we are going to have you say opening . Again everyone thank you for listening. In the previous lesson, we explained what onomatopoeia is. Basically English onomatopoeia means words that imitate sounds. Again I think comic books, the fight scene, Sakura-san, give me some. |
| さくら: Bang. |
| Peter: Pow, whack. |
| さくら: Splash. |
| Peter: Crash. So these are the words that represent sounds. However Japanese onomatopoeia is a little bit different from English right? |
| さくら: はい。We have two types of onomatopoeia 擬音語 and 擬態語. |
| Peter: 擬音語 refers to the imitation of sounds. Now 擬態語 refers to outward appearance or inner psychology rather than the actual sound. So today, we are dealing with |
| さくら: 擬音語the imitation of sound. |
| Peter: Sakura-san, today’s target onomatopoeia words are |
| さくら: ワンワンand にゃんにゃん |
| Peter: Okay so now please have a listen to the sample sentence. This will use both onomatopoeia we just introduced. Sakura-san お願いします。 |
| さくら: はい。 |
| DIALOGUE |
| さくら: 隣の家には、犬が3匹、猫が4匹いる。朝からワンワン、にゃんにゃんうるさくて困る |
| Peter: My neighbor has three dogs and four cats. I am really annoyed by their barking and yelling in the morning. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Let’s take a closer look at these two onomatopoeia. Sakura-san. |
| さくら: ワンワン |
| Peter: Is a sound made by |
| さくら: Dogs. |
| Peter: And |
| さくら: にゃんにゃん |
| Peter: Is a sound made by |
| さくら: Cats. |
| Peter: It’s kind of the opposite onomatopoeia, kind of. Now Sakura-san, they are both spelled in |
| さくら: In hiragana and katakana. |
| Peter: And this depends on the writer’s perception and generally speaking, the katakana is used when the rider wants to emphasize the words. Now jumping back to the cat sound. |
| さくら: はい。にゃんにゃん |
| Peter: Some people may pronounce the word |
| さくら: ニャーニャー |
| Peter: Which is just extending the vowel. |
| さくら: そう。ニャーニャー |
| Peter: Sakura-san, which do you use? |
| さくら: I use ニャーニャーかな。どっちを使いますか、ピーターさんは。 |
| Peter: Umm I use にゃんにゃん |
| さくら: にゃんにゃんね。 |
| Peter: What’s interesting here is in English, we have meow! Meow and |
| さくら: ニャー。にゃんにゃん |
| Peter: Completely different. |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: It’s interesting to see that people who speak different languages hear or interpret the sounds differently. So Sakura-san, we are actually going to play the animal sounds. We will have the audio clip and could you tell us how Japanese people imitate the sound? |
| さくら: はい。 |
| Peter: Okay here we go. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: メーメー、メーメー |
| Peter: Next |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: ヒヒーン、ヒヒーン |
| Peter: Next |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: ブーブー、ブーブー |
| Peter: Next |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: モーモー、モーモー |
| Peter: Next |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: ケロケロ、ケロケロ |
| Peter: Next |
| (the audio clip) |
| さくら: コケコッコー、コケコッコー |
| Peter: The animal sounds so sweet when you do the sounds. Umm let’s talk about the usage but it’s so different. |
| さくら: そうですね。 |
| Peter: Than the English. Let’s just go back. I will give you the English for some and you give me the Japanese. |
| さくら: Okay. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Peter: Baa-baa |
| さくら: メーメー |
| Peter: Oink oink |
| さくら: ブーブー |
| Peter: Moo-moo |
| さくら: モーモー |
| Peter: Ribbit ribbit. |
| さくら: ケロケロ |
| Peter: Cock-a-doodle-doo |
| さくら: コケコッコー |
| Peter: You sound better but I think that’s because you have a better voice and like you actually kind of sing them. |
| さくら: でもSome of them are close. |
| Peter: Yes. |
| さくら: But some of them are really different like “ribbit” and ケロケロ are completely different. |
| Peter: Completely different. Okay so inside the PDF again, there is a very detailed write up. So we definitely recommend grabbing the PDF for this lesson. What we are going to do now is look at the usage. Sakura-san, how do we use these? |
| さくら: You have the sound that animal makes plus と鳴く |
| Peter: And in this case 鳴く is not to cry but rather the sound that animal makes. |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: The cry of an animal. |
| さくら: そうです、そうです。 |
| Peter: There is also |
| さくら: Sound that animal makes plus と言う |
| Peter: Of course と言う is “to say” but in this case, it’s what the noise the animal is making. Finally we have |
| さくら: Sound that animal makes plus と吠える (ほえる). |
| Peter: And this one is “to bark” or “howl”. So this one is a bit more limited with the usage. |
| さくら: はい。 |
| Peter: And one more kind of interesting point. Sakura-san, I noticed Japanese children do something pretty interesting with the onomatopoeia for dogs. |
| さくら: They call dogs ワンワン |
| Peter: So they are actually calling it by the onomatopoeia “bark, bark”. |
| さくら: あそこにワンワンがいるよ, like that. |
| Peter: “Over there, bark, bark!” “Hey look, there is a bark, bark over there.” |
| さくら: そうそうそう |
| Peter: And of course, hey over there is a dog. Very interesting. Let’s have a couple of sample sentences. |
| さくら: 小さな子があっ、ワンワンだと言って、私の犬に近づいてきた。 |
| Peter: “A little kid said, oh it’s a ワンワン a doggie and came closer to my dog.” That’s a good translation, doggie. |
| さくら: ドギーね。 |
| Peter: So can we do にゃんにゃん for kitty? |
| さくら: Yes. |
| Peter: How about another sample sentence? |
| さくら: 家の前で小さい猫がニャーニャーと鳴いていた。 |
| Peter: “A small cat was meowing in front of the house.” Another one. |
| さくら: ずっと家に帰っていなかったので、犬にワンワン吠えられた。 |
| Peter: “Since I hadn’t been home for such a long time, my dogs barked at me when I returned.” And finally |
| さくら: 今夜はカエルがケロケロよく鳴いている。 |
| Peter: The frogs are ribbiting loudly tonight. In two of these examples, you saw the verb 鳴く. It’s a very interesting character. The left side is mouth, the right side is |
| さくら: Bird. |
| Peter: So it’s like the chirping and you saw it used here for frogs |
| さくら: And you can use it for animals as well. |
| Peter: So you saw it used for frogs. |
| さくら: ケロケロ鳴く |
| Peter: And in this case, it didn’t have the と |
| さくら: It can be dropped, it can be either ケロケロと鳴くor ケロケロ鳴くwhichever is okay. |
| Peter: And we also had と鳴くwhich was for the cat. |
| さくら: Yes. ニャーニャーと鳴いていた |
| Peter: So it was meowing. |
| さくら: It can be ニャーニャー鳴いていた，と can be dropped. |
| Peter: Okay Sakura-san, do you have a favorite? |
| さくら: Favorite? ケロケロですね。 |
| Peter: うそでしょ。 |
| さくら: えっ、何で。 |
| Peter: Me too… |
| さくら: ほんと。でもなつこさんは、ケロケロ嫌いだと思う。 |
| Peter: She hates frogs. |
| さくら: そうです。 |
| Peter: We should get her a pet frog. |
Outro |
|---|
| Peter: Okay that’s going to do it for this lesson. Be sure to get the PDF. Again inside the PDF, we have a list of more animals. We also have a reference to a previous lesson we did. Do you remember that lesson? |
| さくら: はい。 It explains what onomatopoeia is. |
| Peter: So be sure to pick that up and be sure to leave us a post. Tell us about onomatopoeia in your country? |
| さくら: そうですね。待ってまーす。 |
| Peter: That’s going to do it for this lesson. |
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