Sound words

Korean sound words are built from the sounds of the language, so the letters tell you about the noise. ㅋ and ㅌ are breathy and explosive, which suits 쾅, 쿵 and 탁, and the tense ㅉ at the start of 쨍그랑 gives it a sharp edge. A final ㅇ is a nasal that can ring on, like the echo after a bang, while a final ㄱ is a closure that stops dead, like a tap that is over at once. That is why 쾅 booms and 탁 does not, and why you can often guess roughly how an unfamiliar effect sounds from its letters alone.

Most sound words are one syllable or a doubled pair, and the doubling does a job: 똑 is one knock or one drop, 똑똑 is the pattern, and 부스럭부스럭 is a rustle that keeps going. English does this with knock knock and drip drip, but Korean does it far more freely, and a doubled sound word nearly always means the sound repeats or continues. The size of the lettering matters as much as the word. A small 부스럭 in the corner of a dark room is someone trying not to be heard.

Read with the sounds, the scene tells itself before anyone speaks: a rustle, a smash, something fast. Take them out and the lines from 지은 (Jieun) make much less sense, which is the point: in a webtoon the sound words are part of the story, not decoration. She reacts with two lines from day 2, 뭐야 and 어떡해, and 민수 (Minsu) checks on her with 괜찮아. The trailing dots do what they did on day 2 as well, so 뭐야...? is nervous rather than annoyed.