Happy, Sad, Angry: Emotion Words in 30+ Languages

Happy is feliz in Spanish, mutlu in Turkish, שמח in Hebrew and ბედნიერი in Georgian. Sad is triste in French and Portuguese, buồn in Vietnamese and עצוב in Hebrew. Angry is marah in Indonesian and Malay and kwaad in Dutch. Below are eight emotion words, from happy to proud, in more than 30 languages and a dozen scripts.

Every word comes from real usage data, not a phrasebook, and each section links to the full list on our free Say it in any language tool.

#Where these words come from

Each /tools/say page lists an English word in up to 53 languages. The words are ranked by how often they appear in film and TV subtitles (the OpenSubtitles 2018 frequency lists) and matched to English through Wiktionary. So these are words people actually say out loud, and every page shows where the word ranks in its language.

Two things to know before you read the tables:

• We only print rows whose meaning matches. Film dialogue is messy, and some pages match a word in a different sense. When the happy page matched Chinese 舒服 (“comfortable”) or the angry page matched a word more often used for “war”, we left that row out.
• The lists are lowercase. We capitalize German nouns like Angst the way you’d see them in a sentence.

#Happy in different languages

Happy is most common in Persian, where خوش ranks #145, and Urdu uses the same word (#154). Malayalam simply borrows the English: ഹാപ്പി. The data glosses Ukrainian щасливий as “happy; lucky”.

See “happy” in all 49 languages →

#Sad in different languages

Sad is much rarer than happy in these lists. Vietnamese buồn (#652) is the most common straightforward match. Hindi उदास and Urdu اداس are the same word in two scripts, and Korean 슬퍼 is a verb form, “to be sad”. Swedish ledsen ranks higher still, at #201, but it is also how Swedes say “I’m sorry”, which is part of why.

See “sad” in all 34 languages →

#Angry in different languages

Afrikaans kwaad (#364) is the most common, and Dutch uses the same word. Indonesian and Malay share marah, at #396 and #395. The data glosses Urdu ناراض as “upset, angry”, and Chinese 生氣 as “to be angry; to get upset”.

See “angry” in all 37 languages → · See “anger” in all 34 languages →

#Fear in different languages

Fear shows up in 49 languages and ranks high in many: French peur is #221. English borrowed the German Angst as “angst”, with a narrower meaning closer to anxiety or dread. The Russian, Polish and Turkish rows on the full page are verbs (“to fear, to be afraid”), which is usually how you’d say it.

See “fear” in all 49 languages →

#Hate in different languages

Most rows are verbs in the form people actually say, like Portuguese odeio and Polish nienawidzę (“I hate”). Turkish nefret is the most common (#301), and Urdu نفرت is the same word in another script.

See “hate” in all 38 languages →

#Calm in different languages

Bengali শান্ত (#246) is the most common, with Indonesian tenang (#295) and Turkish sakin (#296) close behind. Film dialogue shows through here: several rows on the full page are the command “calm down!”, like Greek ηρέμησε and Ukrainian заспокойся.

See “calm” in all 39 languages →

#Tired in different languages

Afrikaans moeg (#359) and Persian خسته (#397) are the most common real matches. The page lists Arabic تعمل as the top row, but that spelling is far more often a form of the verb “to work”, so we left it out, along with Greek βαρέθηκα, which the data glosses “to be bored, be tired”.

See “tired” in all 39 languages →

#Proud in different languages

Proud has the fewest rows of the eight, 30 languages, and is most common in Icelandic, where stoltur ranks #695. The Korean 자랑스럽다 is glossed “to be proud”.

See “proud” in all 30 languages →

#What about love?

Love is one of the few words found in all 53 languages, and it gets its own section in our powerful words in different languages post, alongside hope, peace and memory. See “love” in all 53 languages →

#Why emotion words don’t map one-to-one

A table makes it look as if every language has one neat word for each feeling. The data itself shows that it doesn’t.

• Happy can depend on how long it lasts. The data glosses Dutch blij as “happy; momentarily. For generally in life, see gelukkig”, while German glücklich is “happy; both momentarily and generally in life”. English uses one word for both.
• Sad and sorry can share a word. The most common row on the sad page is Finnish pahoillani (#175), glossed “sorry; upset, sad”. If you learn only one meaning, you’ll misread the other.
• Feelings are often verbs. Greek χαίρομαι is “to be happy”, Hungarian örülök “to be happy or glad”, and Korean 슬퍼 and 자랑스럽다 “to be sad” and “to be proud”. Korean adjectives work like verbs in general. In French and Spanish you “have” fear: j’ai peur, tengo miedo.
• Pride can lean negative. On the proud page, Vietnamese kiêu is glossed “arrogant, proud, haughty” and Basque harrotu “to become proud, become arrogant”. Whether pride is a compliment depends on the word.
• Some words cross into English whole. English borrowed German Angst and Schadenfreude (pleasure at someone else’s bad luck) because it had nothing quite like them. Both are in standard English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster.

None of this means you can’t talk about feelings in another language. It means the first word you learn is a starting point, and native speakers are the ones who show you where its edges are.

#Talking about feelings with a language exchange partner

Emotion words are hard to learn from a list because they only make sense attached to something that happened. A language exchange is a good place to practice them, since “how was your day?” leads straight to them.

• Start with the everyday ones. Tired, happy and calm come up every day; hate and fear come up less, and you’ll want to hear how a native speaker softens them.
• Tell a small true story. “I was tired because…” or “I’m happy that…” makes you choose a word and a grammar pattern, and gives your partner something to correct.
• Ask which word they’d really use. If you say glücklich where a German would say something lighter, only a person will tell you.

Our list of language exchange conversation topics has questions about daily life, memories and plans that bring these words up naturally. If you’re new to this, how to do a language exchange explains how to split the time so both of you practice.

On LangX, you’re matched with people who speak the language you’re learning and are learning yours. Tell your partner how your week went, and when you pick the wrong word for a feeling, they can hold your message to correct it. Corrections are unlimited on every plan, and translation is built into the chat if a word stumps you. The free plan gives you five new conversations a day, with replies unlimited. You can get the app here, or read how to find a language exchange partner first.

9:41

Lucía M. Online

Today

Hold any message to correct it — corrections are the most useful thing you can send.

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? Cuéntame en inglés si quieres. How was your weekend? Tell me in English if you like. 09:12

Fui a la playa con mi hermana. Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. 09:14 · Read

Correction from Lucía Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. Hacía mucho calor y no llevé agua. The «yo» isn't wrong, it just sounds emphatic — like you specifically forgot. 09:15

Message in Spanish…

For people words, see family words in different languages, and for words about the world around you, nature words in different languages. For bold words like strong, fate, faith and promise, see strong words in different languages.

#FAQ

#How do you say “happy” in different languages?

Spanish feliz, French heureux, German glücklich, Hebrew שמח, Arabic سعيد, Persian خوش, Turkish mutlu and Tagalog masaya. The happy page has 49 languages.

#How do you say “sad” in different languages?

French and Portuguese triste, Czech smutný, Hungarian szomorú, Hebrew עצוב, Arabic حزين, Hindi उदास and Vietnamese buồn. The sad page has 34 languages.

#Which emotion word is the most common across languages?

In this data, happy. Across its 49 languages the middle rank is around #400, and it is in the top 300 in languages from Persian and Urdu to Georgian, Arabic, Indonesian and Turkish. Calm and fear come next. Sad, tired and proud are much rarer, with most rows below #1,000.

#Why are some languages missing from a table?

We only include rows whose English meaning matches the feeling in the section. If a language’s match on the page was a different sense, like “comfortable” for happy or “bored” for tired, we left it out rather than fill the gap from memory.