When my sister came to visit last year, we found ourselves talking about sounds. Not just any old sounds, but animal sounds as reproduced by people.
It all started out with roosters. Someone said, “Ah a rooster… chichirichi! (pronounced keykerekey all e’s long)” that was an Italian of course. My sister looked shocked. “No, no! It’s cock-a-doodle doo!”
And then the game began…the duck goes: Qua Qua – no! Quack Quack and the dog? Bau Bau – no! Bow wow! and the cat, what can we say of that? Well, the cat is the same in both languages…almost it says miao in Italian and meow in English (although the purr in Italian is romf romf). The frog goes cra cra but no it goes ribbit and the sheep go bee (pronounced beh) no it goes bah. The crow goes cah cah but in English cra cra, which is why it can’t be used for a frog!
Can you give me some more animal sounds…I love to use them in my silly poems! In the meantime, let me leave you with this lovely children’s song in Italian:
and in English
Have a great Saturday…and if you’ve got a minute, give me some of your animal sounds!
Interesting and fun! Some Swedish ones:
Cow – muu ( a sound you don’t have in English. You have to purse your lips and try to say a (yo)u without the yo…)
Sheep – bää (ä sounds like in” bear” without the r)
Pig – nöff (French “neuf”)
Duck – kvack (in English like qv, and the a like in “cut”)
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Thanks so much…these are great! 😀
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I’m only familiar with cat sounds, unfortunately, and “meow” is not one of them. Reowr!
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I once recall when I was young, I had to read an awful book called Dick and Jane (probably no longer in print do to how our society has corrupted the name Dick)…there the cat wen miew miew or some such nonsense…temped to write a poem just to see how many remember the Dick and Jane primers 😉
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