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I am currently practicing Japanese by reading a novel but I have reached a sentence that I could not understand. ごうと音がして Can you please translate the vocabulary and verb used along with any unique sentence structure/grammar it may have. Thank you.

If it helps, the full context is 「問答、無用」 ごうと音がして、魔女の手の中で火炎が燃え盛る。 I understand that the beginning reads "These questions are useless" and the last part reads "Fire blazed from inside the witch's hand," but I have no clue about the middle part.

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  • [問答無用]{もんどうむよう} is idiomatic. "No ifs, ands or buts"
    – user1016
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 15:36

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ごうと音 is a sound, a short version of ごうごうと meaning "thundering". The full sentence then would be something like

ごうと音がして、魔女の手の中で火炎が燃え盛る。
There was a thundering sound and fire blazed from the hands of the witch.

The と indicates that ごう is used as adverb.

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"ごう" is an onomatopoeic word and you know that the fire blazes furiously. Japanese can hear sound of "ごう" from furiously burning fire.

"ごうと音がして" could be translated into "with a roar".

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    "ごう" is an onomatopoeic word>>I agree. I think it's the same structure as "ポン！と音がして、鍋の中でポップコーンがはじけ飛ぶ。"
    – user1016
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 13:03
  • If I translate "ごうと音がして" into "with a burner-like sound", does it make sense? Actually I would like to turn "with a roar" into another expression. How about "with a burner-like sound"?
    – kerochan
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 13:18
  • @kerochan Hmm... I'm not sure about "with a burner-like sound". The burners on my stove don't make any sound, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to imagine when I read that phrase.
    – user1478
    Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 0:45
  • @snailboat Thank you very much. There are differences in what each of us imagines in seeing the word of "burner" or "バーナー". I didn't take that into consideration. I will try to find other phrases for "ごうと音がして".
    – kerochan
    Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 4:30
  • I think the ごう is a similar sound to ぼう/ぼっ ejje.weblio.jp/content/burst+into+flames (ぼっと燃える=burst into flames)... the sound of something bursting into flames, or the sound of flames burning, like the sound that a match makes when it's ignited and starts to burn.
    – user1016
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 14:55

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