In the Arabic language the meaning of these words is determined by the context in which they are spoken and not in the lexical or semantic sense, and in some contexts (emotional, Situational , linguistic, cultural) 'hear/listen' meaning 'be effective/work'

Wayne Lawrence

I know very little Korean and therefore I would say with caution that when 듣다 is used to mean (to work/ be effective), it is basically metaphorical and only occasionally idiomatic. In 이 약은 잘 듣다, I feel it literally means (the medicine listens well and obeys). Metaphorically speaking, the medicine works or is effective. Such metaphorical use exists in Arabic as well as English in contexts where (listen) metaphorically means “to obey” or “to do as one is told”: listen to her ( that is do as she advises)...

In Japanese 効くand 利く are used to express "be effective/work". 効くis used when referring to something being effective or bringing the expected results as in "the medicine is effective' or "the promotion is effective", while 利くis used to refer to something that functions properly and is useful as in " the brake works”. On the other hand, 聞く and 聴くare used for "hear/listen" , with 聞く used as in "kids don't listen". Although 効く、利く、聞く、聴く are pronounced "kiku" , they all have different meanings and are not interchangeable.

Thank you Milena. However, there appears to be just one word, kiku, in Japanese which has all these usages (supproted by the fact that 'hear/listen' and 'be effective' are also pronounced the same in Korean), and the distinction in orthography (which is extra-linguistic) is merely a reflection of the fact that these usages are expressed by different words in Chinese. This is exactly parallel to the fact that in Japanese there is one word meaning 'hot' (atsui), but it is written as 熱い when referring to 'hot to the touch' and as 暑い when referring to ambient temperature, simply because in Chinese these two notions are expressed by different words.