Food Riddle

Japanese is extremely rich in onomatopoeia. While some of them might be pretty abstract, others seem to make sense, although it’s often not easy to say why – they just speak to us on some mysterious spiritual level. Here are three onomatopoeia related to eating:

かりかり (karikari)

むしゃむしゃ (mushamusha)

がつがつ (gatsugatsu)

Can you imagine what exactly they mean?

Hint: one is related to eating greedily when very hungry; another, to eating something crunchy, like potato chips; the third one, to munching the food audibly.

And the answers are…

かりかり (karikari) – eating something crunchy, e.g., potato chips

むしゃむしゃ (mushamusha) – munching the food audibly

がつがつ (gatsugatsu) – eating greedily when very hungry

Did you guess right?

Written by AL