A small assortment of random Japanese onomatopoeias, for you:
The dog says: wanwan
The cat says: nyaonyao
The baby chick says: piyopiyo
The rooster says: kokekokko
The gleaming, sparkling object says: pikapika
The knock on the door says: tonton
The door bell says: pinpon!
The crunchy snack says: sakusaku
The empty stomach says: pekopeko
The contented snorer says: guuguu
The rapidly beating heart says: dokidoki
The knocking knees say: gakugaku
The sneezer says: hakushon!
In Japanese, onomatopoeias are written in katakana and there is no equivalent for “bless you” or “gesundheit.” Hakushon is only met with silence.
well, bless you comes from christianity, right? and the german word just means “health”, like salud. i guess it makes sense for the japanese not to have an equivalent. korea doesn’t either. it’s weird not to say something after hearing someone sneeze.
my mom always says “god bless you” when i say goodnight and i always say “i didn’t sneeze.”
also, the germans were really surprised to find out that we use their word after sneezing…english adopts crazy random words from so many languages! and i’d venture to say that most people in america don’t know what that german word means or even how to spell it (which i don’t want to do either).
i think the sounds made in spanish are weirder than japanese, because the language is similar but the interpretations are different. the japanese have different alphabets to work from, so it makes sense for them to have different sounds.
although most of them sound like something from a pokemon episode. picapica!
Hi, Liv.
My girlfriend has become “americanized” as she puts it. When she sneezes – always in groups of threes – I say “bless you” and she now says “Thank you.” Also, her vast americanization extends to her hugging her parents when she’s about to leave the country and return to the States. Routinely, her parents freak out at the touching. I followed Aki’s lead in hugging her mom goodbye and I’m pretty certain that was an elbow I got to the stomach.