Animal Sounds in Polish
Grażyna Zawada | 5th December 2009

Is Polish really that difficult? Or is that just a myth, an over-used excuse touted by lazy language students? The Krakow Post presents a series of brief lessons, which should prove useful when learning this beautiful language, as prepared by a native Polish linguist and teacher.

As in English, animal sounds in Polish are one thing, and verbs that mean these activities are another, however some of them are onomatopoeic, i.e. imitating sounds in writing. The proper question to ask for an animal sound is “Jak robi ....?” instead of “mówi”. The answer is e.g. “Kot robi miau”. And now the voices: Polish dogs go “hau hau” (pr. how) (“szczekać” is the verb that denotes this activity), cats go “miau” (“miauczeć”), horses go “iiihaha” (“rżeć”), pigs “chrum, chrum” (“chrumkać”), cows say “muuu” (“muczeć”), snakes “ssss” (“syczeć”), mice “pipipi” (“piszczeć”). Birds chirp “ćwir, ćwir” (“ćwierkać”) and frogs go “kum kum” (“kumkać”). Insects go “bzzzzz” (“bzyczeć”) and wild animals, such as lions, bears, or buffaloes usually roar in an appropriate way (“ryczeć”). Remember that if you conjugate these verbs, the “e” at the end would turn into a letter “y” in the third pers. sing., e.g. “kot miauczy”, “koń rży”, “mysz piszczy” and so on.

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