Animal Sounds
These are the sounds animals "make" in various languages. Can you produce them? Why are some of them similar and others different?
Note: A colon following a vowel indicates a longer duration, and a capital N indicates a nasalized pronunciation. Transcriptions of some sounds were simplified.
語言 Cat Dog Duck Cow
English meow bow-wow quack-quack moo
Arabic miaou miaou haw haw c ouak couak mooooooo
Chinese miao miao wang wang gua gua mu mu
Croatian mijau vau-vau kva-kva muuuu
Dutch miauw woef kwak kwak boeh
Esperanto miaw boj gik-gak muu
Finnish miau, kurnau hau hau/vuh vuh kvaak kvaak ammuu
French miaou ouah ouah coin coin meuh
German miau wau wau/wuff wuff quack, quack mmuuh
Hebrew miyau haw haw/hav hav ga ga ga moo
Hindi mya:uN, mya:uN bho:-bho: baak-baak-baak ba:N ba:N
Hungarian miau vau-vau hap-hap bu
Italian miao bau bau qua qua muuuuuu
Japanese nyaa wanwan, kyankyan gaagaa moo
Norwegian mjau voff /vov-vov kvakk-kvakk mø
Polish miau hau hau kwa kwa muuuuu
Portuguese (Brazil) miau au-au qua qua muuuu
Russian myau gav-gav krya-krya muu
Spanish miau guau guau cuá cuá (Spain), cuac cuac (Argentina) muuu
Swedish mjau vov vov kvack kvack muu
Turkish miyauv, miyauv hav, hav vak, vak mooooo
Ukrainian myau haf-haf krya-krya muu
