Unlike onomatopoeias, which attempt to mimic a particular sound, mimetic verbs attempt to add feeling to a motion or movement to give the listener a more detailed picture of an action. Mimetic verbs are arguably the final hurdle in achieving fluency and sounding “Korean” as they are routinely used by native Korean speakers. These are difficult for Korean second language learners to learn as there are few resources for formal instruction on this topic. Moreover, there is a astonishingly a specific mimetic word for almost every kind of movement until recently, there was little standardization of spelling and slight variations in sound are still very common.

Let’s look at some examples:

오늘 아침에 일어나서 교육에 응용기술 수업에 다니기에 대학교에 운전 해 갔어요.

I got up early this morning and drove to my applied technology in education class.

 오늘 아침에 벌떡 일어나서 교육에 응용기술 수업에 다니기에 대학교에 운전 해 갔어요.

I sprung out of bed early this morning and drove to my applied technology in education class.

쓰레기가 많아서 방을 청소할 수밖에 없어요.

I had to clean the room because it was so dirty.

 쓰레기가 많아서 싹 방을 청소할 수밖에 없어요.

I had to completely clean (from top to bottom) the room because it was so dirty.

As you can see above, the addition of a mimetic verb adds an emphasis of degree feeling, imagery which really lets the listener visualize the action.

Here are 14 Mimetic Verbs I will try to learn to use this week:

  1. 칭칭                                    8. 졸졸                                                   
  2. 가득                                    9. 뻘뻘                                         
  3. 깜짝                                    10. 꼭꼭                                                          
  4. 엉엉                                    11. 철철                                  
  5. 낄낄                                    12. 벅벅                                        
  6. 콕콕                                    13. 펑펑          
  7. 꽁꽁                                    14. 텅텅             
  • a. crying profusely
  • b. water coming out slowly
  • c. sweating a lot
  • d. exerting effort repeatedly
  • e. somebody scratching f. going around something
  • g. water, blood, energy flowing
  • h. somebody snickering
  • i. stinging pain j. using an object frivolously
  • k. something being frozen l. being completely empty
  • m. something wrapping around
  • n. completely full / stuffed
Courtesy of the Soul of Seoul