The Language That Jumps: How Korean Onomatopoeia Makes K-Pop Feel Bigger, Brighter, and Closer

Why “kkangchong-kkangchong” (깡총 깡총) makes a rabbit cute, “kkeongchung-kkeongchung” (껑충 껑충) makes it long-legged—and how Hangul turns sound into story.

Deck: If English gives you “haha,” Korean gives you a whole laugh palette—ㅎㅎㅎ, ㅋㅋㅋ, 푸하하, 키득키득. If English writes “knock knock,” Korean choreographs your knuckles. And if a children’s song about a mountain rabbit needs to feel tender instead of athletic, Korean doesn’t reach for an adjective; it swaps a single vowel color and suddenly the rabbit hops kkangchong-kkangchong, not kkeongchung-kkeongchung. This is the secret engine of K-culture’s emotional bite: an everyday toolkit of onomatopoeia (의성어) and mimetic words (의태어) supercharged by Hangul’s design.

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1) A scene, a sound, a breath

Before you understand anything, you hear it. Imagine a Jeju spring morning, the sea laid out like smooth glass, a salt-touched breeze salang-salang (살랑살랑) brushing your sleeves. A diver breaks the surface and releases a thin whistle, the famous sumbi-sori—a breath that sounds like a silver thread unspooling. On the pier, a child rubs rope-burned palms and whispers a word she has known since before she could read: jeombok… jeombok. In Jeju speech, that’s abalone—jeonbok (전복) softened into jeombok (점복)—rounder, kinder, a syllable that feels like a shell in the mouth. The island isn’t merely described in Korean. It happens in Korean—breathing, scraping, splashing, sizzling—one sound-word at a time.

That is the everyday magic of Korean onomatopoeia and mimetic words (also called ideophones). They don’t just tell you what occurred; they let you perform it with your mouth and feel it in your body. It’s why a K-drama snow scene can carry weight with two little bricks—sobok-sobok (소복소복)—and why a K-pop chorus can drill into your spine with nonsense syllables that aren’t nonsense at all.

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2) The most important tiny lesson: 깡총 깡총 vs 껑충 껑충

Let’s start with the hilltop that looks like a pebble until you step on it: the difference between kkangchong-kkangchong (깡총 깡총) and kkeongchung-kkeongchung (껑충 껑충).

If you grew up anywhere near Korean culture, you probably remember the children’s classic “San Tokki” (Mountain Rabbit). Listen closely: the rabbit in that song doesn’t leap “kkeongchung-kkeongchung.” It hops “kkangchong-kkangchong.” That tiny choice isn’t random; it’s story craft.

깡총 (kkangchong) — The bright vowel ㅏ (a) meets ㅗ (o) and pops upward like a pebble skipping once on water. The mouth shape is springy and forward. The doubled tense consonant ㄲ gives it pep; the final 총 closes with a neat tap. The result is a small, cute, bouncy hop—ears wobbling, paws lifting just off the ground.

껑충 (kkeongchung) — The darker vowels ㅓ (eo) and ㅜ (u) drag the center of gravity lower and longer. The syllable stretches. The same ㄲ starts the jump firmly, but 충 hangs—like a gazelle clearing a ditch. The result is a long-striding, far-covering bound—athletic, a little heavy, less cuddly.

One vowel tilt. One vibe shift. The song’s writer wanted tenderness, nearness, a rabbit small enough to fit on a child’s palm—so the rabbit goes 깡총 깡총, not 껑충 껑충. This is Korean’s gift in a nutshell: when English reaches for an adjective (“cute hop,” “big leap”), Korean changes the sound and the scene changes with it.

Keep this pair in your pocket. It’s the decoder ring for everything that follows. If you can hear the color contrast between a-o and eo-u, you’re ready to hear why K-pop feels like choreography you can taste.

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3) Two word-galaxies English barely has

Korean speakers name two huge families of sound-words:

의성어 (uiseong-eo): sound imitations of the world. 쾅 (a slam), 딩동 (doorbell), 쨍그랑 (glass shatter), 지글지글 (sizzling oil).

의태어 (uitaeeo): imitations of manner, texture, and feeling—even when no sound exists. 살랑살랑 (lightly swaying), 반짝반짝 (twinkling), 말랑말랑 (softly squishy), 터벅터벅 (trudging).

In English, onomatopoeia is mostly a novelty drawer: bang, boom, splash. Korean builds rooms out of it—rooms with temperature, rhythm, lighting, and furniture. When you say sobok-sobok, the snow layers softly; when you say jol-jol (졸졸), water trickles; when you say sagak-sagak (사각사각), a pencil whispers across paper. The word isn’t a label; it’s a score for your mouth to play.

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4) Why Hangul supercharges sound

This expressiveness isn’t an accident. Hangul—the Korean alphabet—is a featural writing system: consonant shapes mirror how and where the sound is made in your mouth, and the vowel system is so tidy and pictorial that swapping one symbol can feel like repainting a scene.

Three knobs matter most:

Reduplication

Repeating a syllable (or the whole word) gives motion and duration: 쿵 (one thud), 쿵쿵 (two steps), 쿵쾅쿵쾅 (pounding); 반짝 (a glint) becomes 반짝반짝 (a twinkle that lasts). Children intuit this; songwriters weaponize it.

Vowel color

Bright/front vowels—ㅏ (a), ㅗ (o), ㅑ (ya)—often feel small, light, forward. Dark/back vowels—ㅓ (eo), ㅜ (u), ㅡ (eu)—lean heavy, deep, slower. That’s why 깡총 feels perky while 껑충 feels long-legged. It’s not rules carved in stone, but the correlations are robust enough for poets, comedians, and idol rappers to rely on.

Consonant force

Korean’s three-way contrast (plain vs. tense vs. aspirated: ㄱ/ㄲ/ㅋ, ㄷ/ㄸ/ㅌ, ㅂ/ㅃ/ㅍ, ㅈ/ㅉ/ㅊ) lets you dial impact. 탁 (crisp), 딱 (harder, tighter), 퍽 (breathier punch). When you read 뚜두뚜두 (ttudu ttudu) or 빠빠빠 (bbabbabba), you feel the drum skin.

Put those together, and Hangul works like a home studio for everyday speakers. You don’t guess how to spell a sound; you compose it.

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5) The laugh palette (and why “lol” barely scratches it)

Ask yourself: how many laughs can you write in English? “Haha”? “Hehe”? Maybe “lol” or “lmao.” Cute. Now open a Korean chat thread.

ㅋㅋㅋ — the default chuckle: dry, throat-back, a little ironic if needed.

ㅎㅎㅎ — warmer, open-mouthed, like light leaking out.

푸하하 — an uncorked belly laugh.

키득키득 / 킥킥 — a suppressed giggle/snicker.

깔깔 — a high-pitched, uncontrolled cackle.

피식 — a tiny involuntary smirk, the smile-leak you didn’t mean.

Each choice sets social tone and character. An idol on a variety show who bursts into 푸하하 is inviting you in; a villain sliding a 씨익 across his face is telling you to brace. It’s not just vocabulary; it’s direction.

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6) The tiny comic (and true) test: the “fart problem”

Forgive the detour, but this is the cleanest way to see the limits of alphabets designed for words, not noises. English improvises “pfft,” “prrt,” “thpppt,” “brrrt”—funny, fuzzy, imprecise. Hangul lets you sculpt:

뿡 — a round, single puff

빵 — a sharp pop

뽕 — hollow and cheeky

뿌앙 — airier, sustained

뿌직 — short with a sticky tail (comic panels love this)

부르릉 — a motor-like vibration

Silly? A bit. Useful? Absolutely. The same vowel and consonant knobs that let you paint bathroom humor let you orchestrate action scenes (타다다다 for gunfire, 쾅 for a slam) and romance (두근두근 for heartbeats, 후 for a warm exhale). It’s one system, all the way down.

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7) A child’s poem, a mother’s breath: “Gaejeombok”

Back to Jeju. In a widely loved drama set on the island, a child’s poem became a small national ache. The poem turns around a single local word: 점복 (jeombok)—Jeju’s way of saying 전복 (jeonbok), abalone. The line “점복 점복” repeats like a heartbeat. Later, a wish: “어망 쉬게 하고 싶네”—“I want the net to rest.” If you’ve ever heard the haenyeo diver’s whistle, the sumbi-sori, you can’t miss what the child is counting: not money, not shells—breaths. One sound-word steadies a world.

Why bring this to K-pop fans? Because it shows how an ideophone can carry labor, love, danger, and time all at once. No exposition, no voice-over. Just sound turned into story.

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8) Where K-pop makes it sing: five case studies

K-pop is the global stage where Korean sound-words flex. They sell rhythm, feeling, and choreography in a single bite. Here are five smart ways artists do it.

A) BLACKPINK — “DDU-DU DDU-DU”

Before you parse a single lyric, the title fires. Ddu-du ddu-du is snare, swagger, finger-gun, attitude. The hook doubles as a brand (you can chant it in any language) and as percussion you can see in the choreography. This is the “write the sound you want to feel” trick at stadium scale.

B) IU — “BBIBBI”

The beep in the title is not a toy; it’s a boundary line. The song’s concept—respect my space—gets enforced by the onomatopoeic 삐 (bbi), a sonic yellow card. It’s more than motif; it’s policy rendered as a one-syllable siren.

C) TWICE — “Knock Knock”

An English onomatopoeia made Korean by choreography. The choreography literally drums on a door, the arrangement sprinkles door-raps, and the title tells global listeners exactly how to mouth the chorus. Sound-word as learnable participation.

D) Crayon Pop — “Bar Bar Bar (빠빠빠)”

Three doubled tense consonants become a trampoline. Say 빠빠빠 (bbabbabba) three times and you’ve already started the move. It’s hard to find a purer example of “ideophone as dance notation.”

E) Apink — “Dumhdurum (덤더럼)”

Not literal sound but felt rhythm: the heart gone numb. Deom-deoreom (덤더럼) lands like a shrug that keeps time. It’s the mimetic side of the system—less gunshot, more emotional texture—and proof that Korean doesn’t need to be noisy to be musical.

Pattern to steal: hooks that the body can perform beat pure semantics every time. If your chorus can be shouted by a stadium after one listen, your ideophones are doing heavy lifting.

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9) On TV screens and webtoons: when captions become a second soundtrack

Korean television has developed a bold visual language for sound. Variety shows and food programs splash impact captions across the frame—letters that tremble, shatter, drip, flare—so viewers see 지글지글 (jigeul-jigeul, sizzle) and 사각사각 (sagak-sagak, pencil whisper) as they hear them. It’s not just decoration; it’s authorship. The caption becomes a second narrator, exaggerating mood, staging slapstick, or polishing quiet moments into something you can rewatch.

Webtoons push the same logic onto the page. Translators don’t only wrestle with what to call 쨍그랑 in English; they wrestle with how it should look—font, weight, tilt, placement—so the effect lands. In Korea, sound is not only a word. It’s design.

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10) A working ear: mini-lexicon for K-pop fans

Here’s a pocket set you can start using today. Don’t memorize the translation; memorize the feel.

Water & weather

졸졸 (jol-jol) — trickling stream

보슬보슬 (boseul-boseul) — fine, feathery rain

주룩주룩 (jurook-jurook) — steady pour

철썩 (cheol-sseok) — wave smack

소복소복 (sobok-sobok) — snow layering softly

Motion & steps

사뿐사뿐 (sappun-sappun) — light, tiptoeing steps

터벅터벅 (teobeok-teobeok) — heavy, trudging steps

깡총깡총 (kkangchong-kkangchong) — small cute hops

껑충껑충 (kkeongchung-kkeongchung) — long, big bounds

빙글빙글 (binggeul-binggeul) — spinning lightly

Impact & mechanics

쿵 (kung) — a rounded thud

쾅 (kwang) — a sharp slam

탁/딱/퍽 (tak/ddak/peok) — crisp → hard → breathy hit

타다다다 (tadadada) — rapid fire / frantic tapping

Light & texture

반짝반짝 (banjjak-banjjak) — twinkling, delicate

번쩍번쩍 (beonjjeok-beonjjeok) — glaring, brash

보송보송 (bosong-bosong) — fluffy-dry

촉촉 (chok-chok) — pleasantly moist

쫀득쫀득 (jjondeuk-jjondeuk) — chewy, elastic (food heaven)

Breath, voice & heart

두근두근 (dugeun-dugeun) — heartbeat

콩닥콩닥 (kongdak-kongdak) — lighter heartbeat / flutter

후 (hu) — a long warm exhale

흑흑/엉엉 (heuk-heuk/eong-eong) — sobbing, crying sounds

Laughter & smiles

ㅋㅋㅋ (keukeukeu) — chuckle

ㅎㅎㅎ (hahaha) — warm laugh

푸하하 (pu-ha-ha) — belly laugh

키득키득 (kideuk-kideuk) — tittering

씨익 (ssi-ik) — sly stretched grin

Read them aloud. Feel the vowels moving weight around. Notice how tense consonants lock your jaw for a tighter punch, how aspirated ones breathe.

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11) Back to the rabbit: a micro-lesson in vowel physics

Let’s run a slow-motion replay on 깡총 and 껑충 so you can hear what your mouth is actually doing.

깡총 (kkang-chong)

깡 (kkang) — Tense ㄲ tightens the start; the vowel ㅏ (a) opens bright and forward; ㅇ closes nasally—a neat pop.

총 (chong) — ㅊ (aspirated) adds a whisper; ㅗ (o) rounds and lifts; the final ㅇ seals it softly.

Overall: A small upward flick. You can almost see a short arc.

껑충 (kkeong-chung)

껑 (kkeong) — Tense ㄲ, but with ㅓ (eo) pulling the sound deeper in the mouth; ㅇ seals. The syllable feels heavier.

충 (chung) — ㅊ plus ㅜ (u) stretches the jump; ㅇ closes.

Overall: The arc lengthens, like clearing a puddle. Your lips round more; your tongue sits farther back; your mental picture zooms out.

If you swapped 깡총 into a sports commentary about a high jumper, it would feel ridiculous; if you swapped 껑충 into a toddler’s picture book, the rabbit would suddenly feel like a kangaroo. Same consonants, different vowels, different world.

This is why ideophones are so addictive: you’re not learning a list; you’re learning a control system. Once you’ve internalized the system—once a/o tastes bright and eo/u tastes deep—you can invent new sound-words and native speakers will nod because your mouth physics match theirs.

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12) How to train your ear (and have fun doing it)

You don’t need a textbook; you need play. Five habits:

Shadow captions

Watch your favorite variety show with captions on. When 지글지글 or 사각사각 splashes on screen, whisper it. Match your mouth to the typography. Try tense vs. plain consonants—딱 vs. 탁. The show’s editors are your best teachers.

Swap to feel tone

Take any line and swap a bright vowel for a dark one. “It’s a sweet memory” → think 반짝반짝. “It hit me hard” → think 쾅 not 쿵 if you want sharp, 쿵 if you want heavy.

Build a personal palette

Keep twelve favorites in Notes: weather (소복소복/주룩주룩), motion (사뿐사뿐/터벅터벅/깡총깡총/껑충껑충), impact (쿵/쾅), light (반짝반짝/번쩍번쩍), laughter (ㅋㅋㅋ/ㅎㅎㅎ/키득키득), heart (두근두근/콩닥콩닥). Use them in comments, captions, and fanfic. Your friends will get addicted too.

Treat hooks like drums

When you learn a new chorus, ask: what’s the mouth beat here? Is it tense (ㅃ, ㅉ, ㄸ) like a snare? Aspirated (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ) like a hiss? Make a practice of annotating hooks with ideophones.

Read one poem aloud

Pick a short Korean poem that leans on repetition—like the “jeombok” poem—and read it aloud slowly, even if your comprehension is partial. Feel where breath gathers. Ideophones aren’t just sound; they are pacing.

In a week, you’ll hear screens differently. In a month, you’ll write differently. In a year, you’ll have a sixth sense for what Korean wants to do with your mouth next.

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13) A creator’s guide: using sound-words without cheesiness

If you write subs, lyric translations, dance notes, or even K-pop fanfic, here’s how to harness ideophones without turning your pages into a comic book buffet.

Think effect, not one-to-one

If 소복소복 doesn’t port elegantly to English, write the effect: “snow piles in hush, layer upon layer.” You can always add the Korean in italics for flavor.

Design counts

When you caption 쨍그랑, make it glint. Font, weight, tracking, even slight tilt—all of it carries sound. In K-culture, typography is a sound board.

Use contrast pairs

Juxtapose 반짝반짝 with 번쩍번쩍 or 쿵 with 쾅 to map mood shifts. One syllable swap can stand in for a paragraph of exposition.

Respect register

ㅋㅋㅋ in a formal press release is chaos; 깔깔 in a tender scene can tip into mockery. Pick laughter words the way you’d cast actors.

Get local when it matters

If your story lives on Jeju, a 점복 (jeombok) does more than a 전복 (jeonbok). Dialect ideophones are world-building in two beats.

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14) Why this matters for global K-pop

There’s a reason K-pop conquered the internet with hooks that aren’t “words” in the usual sense. Sounds travel light. A stadium full of fans can learn ddu-du ddu-du or bbibbi or knock knock in one pass. Once they’re in, the rest of the language follows more easily because the mouth has already joined the rhythm.

Learning a handful of ideophones isn’t just “studying Korean.” It’s a shortcut to feeling what producers, choreographers, and editors built—where the beat lands, where the camera should cut, where the shoulder pops. Once you can tell 깡총 from 껑충, you can tell where a dance wants to be small and cute versus long and fierce. Once you can hear 반짝 versus 번쩍, you can sense when a lighting cue should sparkle versus flare.

And because Hangul is engineered for tinkering, you can make your own. Fans coin micro-memes with tiny syllable tweaks; idols riff in live comments with laughter strings that function like chords; editors invent one-off captions that say more with letters than any line could. The culture is participatory because the toolkit is democratic.

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15) Field notes from real scenes (you’ve probably seen these)

Study montage, any high school drama: the camera cuts wide, then close—사각사각 draws you into the loop of graphite on paper; 팔락팔락 (palak-palak) flips the pages with an optimism you can feel. You don’t need a pep talk; you’ve got a sound-track made of letters.

Food reality TV: oil hits pan—지글지글—and even if you muted the TV you’d swear you could smell it. When the cutlet hits the plate 바삭바삭 (basak-basak) cracks, you’re already reaching for take-out.

Sports highlight: the aluminum bat’s 짱 (jjang) rings different from a wooden bat’s 쾅 (kwang). You can almost gauge a hit’s “true outcome” by its ideophone.

Horror beat: a playground swing 끼익 (kkiiik) squeals and your stomach knows before your brain does.

Rom-com taxi chase: tires 끼익, wipers 칙칙, rain 주룩주룩, hearts 두근두근. You could turn off dialogue and still follow the arc.

Idol livestream: a singer reads a comment and lets out 피식—that tiny, involuntary smirk—then fixes the camera with a 씨익. You just watched two syllables tell a whole story about teasing and ease.

Once you start naming these little moves, you can’t stop seeing them. It’s like discovering a color you didn’t know you were missing.

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16) A quick craft lab: make it cute, make it long, make it sharp

Let’s run three micro-exercises to lock the feel in your body.

A. Cute vs. long

Goal: write a one-line caption for a dance move.

Cute: “The bunny hops 깡총깡총 in place.” (Small verticals, elbows tucked.)

Long: “The bunny bounds 껑충껑충 across the floor.” (Deep knee drive, traveling distance.)

Lesson: same animal, new physics.

B. Sparkle vs. glare

Goal: describe a stage light in a fan account.

Sparkle: “The light 반짝반짝 across the sequins.” (Dainty, twinkly.)

Glare: “The light 번쩍번쩍 in my eyes.” (Aggressive, brash.)

Lesson: want “glamour” or “assault”? Pick your vowel.

C. Soft hit vs. hard hit

Goal: annotate a drum fill in a rehearsal clip.

Soft: “He ends with 탁 탁.” (Crisp taps.)

Hard: “He ends with 딱 딱.” (Tighter, tenser.)

Lesson: tense consonants add punch without changing rhythm.

The more you play this way, the more you discover that ideophones are direction. They tell a dancer what to do, a cinematographer what to shoot, a translator what to protect.

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17) A note on respect and register

Sound-words are powerful because they’re intimate. They sit close to emotion. Use them with care.

In grief scenes, 흑흑 can read as raw or childish depending on context. Sometimes the better choice is to write the effect: “her breath caught,” “his chest folded,” and leave the ideophone out.

In comedy, resist the impulse to stack five in a row. One well-placed 쨍그랑 does more than a wall of 꽝쾅쾅쾅.

In subtitles, remember that Romanization helps newcomers, but Hangul feels different. If your platform allows, keep the Hangul and add small Romanization where helpful: sobok-sobok (소복소복). Let the letters do their visual work.

Above all, remember that ideophones aren’t “childish.” They’re precise. Chefs, athletes, divers, machinists—anyone who lives by texture and rhythm—speak this language fluently.

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18) Your 7-day challenge (K-pop edition)

Day 1: Listen for doubles. Pick three dramas or variety clips and write down every reduplicated word you catch: 반짝반짝, 두근두근, 사각사각. Say them twice aloud. Feel the pace they create.

Day 2: Build the rabbit pair. Record yourself saying 깡총깡총 and 껑충껑충. Watch your cheeks and lips in the selfie camera. Notice how your face changes. Use each in a one-sentence caption about a dance.

Day 3: Caption a ten-second clip. Take a rehearsal or fancam. Without translating any lyrics, write three ideophones that map what your body wants to do as you watch. (Example: 탁 탁 for heel hits, 슥슥 for a hand glide, 휙 for a quick turn.)

Day 4: The food test. Describe your lunch using only ideophones and one noun. “바삭바삭 outside, 쫀득쫀득 inside—mochi-donut.” Post it. Watch replies flood in.

Day 5: Swap the light. Find a performance clip with heavy lighting. Write two versions of a one-line fan account: one with 반짝반짝, one with 번쩍번쩍. Check which one matches the stage design.

Day 6: Laughter etiquette. Scroll an idol’s comments. Collect five laughter types (ㅋㅋㅋ, ㅎㅎㅎ, 푸하하, 히히, 키득키득). Try to guess the temperature of each reply just from the laugh. (You’ll be right more than you think.)

Day 7: Build a 12-word palette. Choose twelve ideophones you genuinely like. Put them on your lock screen for a week. Use at least three per day in DMs or captions. You’re not just learning vocabulary; you’re training your instrument.

By next week, you won’t need a guide. You’ll be the guide.

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19) Frequently misunderstood, quickly fixed

“Isn’t this all subjective?” There’s wiggle room—language is human—but Korean speakers consistently read vowel and consonant switches in similar ways. That’s why 깡총 vs. 껑충 works for everyone, not just poets.

“Isn’t onomatopoeia just for kids?” Kids use it because it’s foundational. Adults keep it because it’s efficient. Engineers, chefs, editors, and athletes all need precision about texture and timing. Ideophones deliver it in two beats.

“Can I overdo it?” Yes. Think of them as spices. A pinch wakes the dish; a handful numbs the tongue. Put your loudest ideophone at the turning point of a scene, not on every line.

“What about Romanization? I can’t read Hangul yet.” Romanization helps you start, but Hangul helps you feel it. Because it’s featural, learning the letters pays off faster than you think. In a weekend, you can read enough to taste the difference between 깡총 and 껑충 without training wheels.

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20) The deeper glow: sound-words as memory

Behind the cuteness and craft is something older and softer. The Jeju diver’s whistle, the child’s 점복 점복, the way 소복소복 makes your chest unclench in winter—that’s not just technique. It’s how a culture keeps time. Tiny syllables bind people to places, parents to children, fans to idols. The reason K-pop’s ideophone hooks feel universal isn’t only that they’re catchy. It’s that bodies recognize what mouths are trying to do: pop, spin, sigh, sparkle, soften, spring.

Korean gives you a way to draw those motions with sound. Once you taste that, subtitles stop being a barrier and start being a score, a set of cues your body can play.

So the next time you hear a chorus that doesn’t “mean” anything yet, don’t skip. Turn it up. Mouth the hook. Ask whether it’s 깡총 or 껑충, 반짝 or 번쩍, 쿵 or 쾅. Your tongue will tell you more than any dictionary can.

And if you want to feel the most Korean sentence you can say this minute? Try this little string out loud, letting your face do the work:

“봄바람이 살랑살랑, 눈은 소복소복, 마음은 두근두근—토끼는 깡총깡총.” Bom-barami salang-salang, neun-eun sobok-sobok, maeumeun dugeun-dugeun—tokkineun kkangchong-kkangchong.

If you smiled without thinking, welcome. You’re already speaking the language that K-pop is made of.

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Bonus: a quick reference you can screenshot

Cute hop vs. long bound

Cute: 깡총깡총 (kkangchong-kkangchong) — small, perky, in-place

Long: 껑충껑충 (kkeongchung-kkeongchung) — far, leggy, traveling

Sparkle vs. glare

Sparkle: 반짝반짝 (banjjak-banjjak)

Glare: 번쩍번쩍 (beonjjeok-beonjjeok)

Heavy vs. sharp impact

Heavy: 쿵 (kung)

Sharp: 쾅 (kwang)

Light vs. trudging steps

Light: 사뿐사뿐 (sappun-sappun)

Trudging: 터벅터벅 (teobeok-teobeok)

Gentle rain vs. sheets

Gentle: 보슬보슬 (boseul-boseul)

Sheets: 주룩주룩 (jurook-jurook)

Heartbeats

Full: 두근두근 (dugeun-dugeun)

Flutter: 콩닥콩닥 (kongdak-kongdak)

Laughter

Chuckle: ㅋㅋㅋ

Warm laugh: ㅎㅎㅎ

Burst: 푸하하

Snicker: 키득키득

Tape that to your wall. Or better yet, sing it. K-pop will take care of the rest.