Vagrere
11-01-2007, 04:55 PM
I'm sure any student of Japanese will agree that one of the most irritating things is trying to figure out the wealth of sound words that Japan so favors, whether it's onomatopoetic or otherwise: this is, right now, concerning a specific problem of mine, but I thought I'd leave the subject vague so that this topic could cover future problems--and not just mine. There are just so many different words of that nature--from ぬるぬる to all the different ways they have of saying "meow"--that any foreigner is bound to get lost in them; and, at least to my knowledge, no comprehensive dictionary exists--probably because the rate at which these words are created and mutate is likely immense.
My own current problem is this: ウオリャ. In the context I've found it in, it almost appears to be similar in context to when an English speaker might playfully say "Roar!". Unfortunately, I'm a perfectionist, and vague context extrapolation isn't good enough for me.
So I suppose my question is twofold--first, does anybody know of a good resource for sound words and the like? I'm not looking for something with every single one, but something that's fairly comprehensive--so far my best resource has been Jim Breen's online dictionary. Secondly, what, exactly, does ウオリャ represent?
My own current problem is this: ウオリャ. In the context I've found it in, it almost appears to be similar in context to when an English speaker might playfully say "Roar!". Unfortunately, I'm a perfectionist, and vague context extrapolation isn't good enough for me.
So I suppose my question is twofold--first, does anybody know of a good resource for sound words and the like? I'm not looking for something with every single one, but something that's fairly comprehensive--so far my best resource has been Jim Breen's online dictionary. Secondly, what, exactly, does ウオリャ represent?