"여우는 어떻게 웁니까?"
Translation:What does the fox say?
78 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Fun fact: Foxes actually do make every single one of the sounds in that song. Even if the song became a horrible "hillarious" meme, it's actually highly educational.
Animals "say" in English, and "cry" in Korean. However, literal translation is also accepted.
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because in English you ask "how an animal cries" or "what an animal says" it is weird if you use the wrong question word.
I think for all animals except dogs. Dogs bark, or "짖다". I guess we also sometimes say foxes bark, but not in Korean.
"cry" is an acceptable term for the vocalizations of (most) animals in English. Or just any harsh vocalization, e.g. a warcry or a cry of pain.
웁니다 is cry, but here it was translated to say, I think in English "what does the fox says" sounds more natural than "what does the fox cries"
In '여유는 어떻게 웁니까' the hints says that it mean 'how does a fox cry' but the right answer is 'Whst does the fox say?' WHY!!!
Because that's how it is in Korean.
Have you ever thought about English the same way? Singular nouns take verbs with "s". Right? "He walks", "The girl talks"...
Plural nouns take verbs without "s". Right? "They walk", "The girls talk".
Same holds true for the plural We. "We walk", "We talk". Now I is the singular of We.
So why not "I walks", "I talks"... WHY?? WHY??
Because that's the way it is in English. Learn it. Similarly the above is the way it is in Korean.
Let's learn Korean grammar the same way we learnt English grammar... by accepting how it is. :-)
First encountered it in the Japanese course and now here. I'm low key waiting for it in the Chinese.
- 779
※ '울다' have 2 means. 1. Cry 2. Animals sounds. ex) cattle - moo, cat - mew, dog - bow-wow
Hathee hathee hathee oohh hathee hathee hathee ooh....dingdingdingdingdingdidingdiding....
- 269
울다 - cry
ㄹ irregular verb. On conjugating using the formal ㅂ니다 , the ㄹ drops off (VS = 우) :
-> 우 + ㅂ니다 -> 웁니다
In interrogative forms:
웁니? - formal, low level of politeness
웁니까? - formal, high level of politeness
Should it be how instead of what? And it doesnt make sense in english the fox say. It should fox cries.
- 269
울다 (= to cry) when used to mean to express itself (i.e. in the case of non-humans: animals, birds etc.) is an intransitive verb. In other word, it cannot take a direct object.
So 뭐 (= 무엇) meaning 'what thing' (identifying a direct object) cannot be used in a question with 울다.
To seek information about the animal's cry, Koreans use different structures:
• 어떻게 (= how i.e. in which way can the action be construed/understood in human language)
여우는 어떻게 울어요? = In which way can the fox's cry be interpreted ?
(By inference) => what does the fox say?
• 뭐라고 (= 'what'-question used to get a quotation, direct or indirect)
여우는 뭐라고 울어요? = what cry does the fox make?
An expected answer to this question would be something like: 여우가 ‘흥흥, 킁킁, 멍멍’ 라고 울어요 = The fox cries, "hoo... hoo, grr ... grr, wow... wow" (direct quote) [ howls, growls & barks ]
IMO, the use of 어떻게 (= how) to mean "in which way can the action be construed/understood", happens frequently with stative verbs (intransitive); and also with some speech verbs (to say, to speak, to suggest, to cry, to bleat ...) & some cognitive verbs (to think, to feel, to understand...) which can be both transitive or intransitive verbs depending on the situation.
@Viviano - this is one of the peculiarities of the Korean language. They frequently use 어떻게 when they mean "what".
For example 어떻게 생각해요 is literally "How do you think?"; but Koreans will say this when they intend to say "What do you think?"..
Hope this helps.
- 269
Literally, yes. But a literal translation of idioms can distort the meaning of the original message.
In this case, if translated as "How does the sheep 'cry'?" the Speaker seems to be asking for the manner in which the animal bleats. This is not what the original message tries to convey.
여우는 어떻게 울어요 ? = what does the sheep cry (--> is saying / is trying to say) ?
Note:
The use of the verb 울다 (to cry) to describe the way the sheep communicates, dictates the use of 어떻게 as a "what" question because 울다 is strictly an intransitive verb and cannot take a direct object complement.
The verb "to cry" in English on the other hand can be transitive as seen in some idioms: cry a river; cry wolf; cry the blues, cry shame etc. So to some extent, "What does the sheep cry?" can be a valid translation.
What does the sheep cry? - It cries wolf.
Love to get some feedback on this last point.
- 582
what is the propositional content of this question? does it mean "what is the sound that foxes make? ?" or "what is the fox saying?"
여우는 어떻게 웁니까? = How do foxes cry? I made a report. It is a mistake of the database. It affect our scores, -2 xp.
Not really. Koreans use 어떻게 even when they don't mean "How".
e.g. 어떻게 생각해요 does not mean "How do you think". It means "What do you think".
If you answered 어떻게 생각해요 with "Using my brain", Koreans will laugh at your joke..
Any other complaint?
P.S. focus on learning Korean, not on the scores.
How does the fox cry this must be my answer but its not in the choices. So i just tried to answer What does the fox say and luckily i got it correct.lol
- 1151
I used plural “foxes" and a verb “cry", so why my answer (How do the foxes cry?) has not been accepted? Just In case I flagged it.
Since when does 웁니다 mean "to say" ! You should accept "how does the fox cry?" as a valid answer. I'm not okay wirh loosing a point because of an unclear expression.
i think this one is bad. no one in English actually uses "say" to refer to the sound an animal makes. the dudes that made that song were like finnish or something. it's a translation of a bad translation imo
- 440
You're right that the dudes who made the song weren't native English speakers, but you're wrong about people not saying "say" for animals in English. Any small child I've ever known has been taught what animals "say", not what they call or cry or whatever. Maybe not everyone talks about what the animals say but it's definitely used in my part of the U.S at least.
