Sea, Mountain, River: Nature Words in 30+ Languages

Sea is mar in Spanish, θάλασσα in Greek, 바다 in Korean and deniz in Turkish. Mountain is Berg in German, کوه in Persian and 산 in Korean, and river is río in Spanish, नदी in Hindi and sông in Vietnamese. Below are 16 nature words, from sea and sky to tree and forest, 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 every page shows where the word ranks in its language.

Two things to know:

• Frequency lists count spellings, not meanings. If a word for “sea” is spelled like an everyday verb, it ranks very high for the wrong reason. We only print rows whose meaning matches, and we say where the full page’s “most common” claim is one of these.
• The lists are lowercase. We capitalize German nouns (Berg, Wasser) the way you’d see them in a sentence.

#Sea in different languages

Tagalog dagat (#383) is the most common real match. The page’s top rows are not: Danish have is spelled like “to have”, Icelandic hafi like a form of “to have”, and Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian mora like “must”. Bengali সমুদ্র and Hindi समुद्र are the same word in two scripts.

See “sea” in all 46 languages →

#Mountain in different languages

Tagalog bundok (#482) and Korean 산 (#490) are the most common. The page lists Slovak hore at #216, but that is the everyday word for “up”. Georgian, Estonian and Tamil rows are glossed “mountain, hill”: one word covers both.

See “mountain” in all 38 languages →

#River in different languages

Hindi नदी, Bengali নদী, Telugu నది and Malayalam നദി are one word in four scripts. Tagalog ilog (#408) is the most common real match; the page’s top row, Bosnian reci, is also the everyday word for “say!“.

See “river” in all 39 languages →

#Wind in different languages

Telugu గాలి (#227) and Tamil காற்று (#249) lead. Hindi हवा, Korean 바람 and Tamil காற்று are glossed as both “air” and “wind”. Read the full page with care: the Chinese row means “to break wind”, and the Serbian and Croatian ones “to wind up”.

See “wind” in all 46 languages →

#Rain in different languages

Rain is most common in Malayalam, where മഴ ranks #315; Tamil மழை is its close cousin. The Chinese, Danish and Icelandic rows on the full page are the verb “to rain”.

See “rain” in all 43 languages →

#Sun in different languages

Tagalog araw ranks #83, helped by the fact that it also means “day”. Indonesian matahari is literally “eye of the day” (mata + hari). The Arabic row includes the article: الشمس is “the sun”.

See “sun” in all 43 languages →

#Moon in different languages

Moon and month are one word in many languages, which is why Persian ماه (#232), Tagalog buwan (#304) and Turkish ay (#311) rank so high. Czech měsíc works the same way.

See “moon” in all 42 languages →

#Star in different languages

Basque izar (#571) is the most common. Macedonian ѕвезда starts with ѕ, a letter found in the Macedonian alphabet and not in the Russian, Serbian or Bulgarian ones. Skip the celebrity rows on the full page (Chinese 明星, Tagalog artista): they mean a movie star.

See “star” in all 44 languages →

#Sky in different languages

Vietnamese trời (#321) leads. Sky and heaven share a word in many languages: the data glosses Dutch hemel as “sky, heavens”, Hebrew שמים as “sky, skies, heavens, heaven” and Chinese 天空 as “sky; heavens”.

See “sky” in all 44 languages →

#Fire in different languages

Fire is in all 53 languages, and Telugu అగ్ని (#204) is the most common real match. Film dialogue shows here: the Chinese, Swedish, Vietnamese and Portuguese rows mean “to shoot”, and the Hebrew one means to fire someone from a job.

See “fire” in all 53 languages →

#Water in different languages

Tagalog tubig (#139) and Malayalam വെള്ളം (#140) are the most common. Indonesian air is a classic false friend: it means water. Our basic words post has more languages for water.

See “water” in all 53 languages →

#Earth in different languages

English “earth” is both the planet and the ground, and so is this table: Turkish toprak and Vietnamese đất are glossed “earth, soil”. Among rows that mean the planet or the ground, Galician terra (#242) is the most common; Spanish and Tagalog mundo rank higher but mean “world”. The Korean and Chinese rows on the full page come from “what on earth” and “why on earth”.

See “earth” in all 48 languages →

#Tree in different languages

This is the messiest page. Its Spanish row means “beech”, its Italian row “pear tree” and its Indonesian row “family tree”, and its claim that tree is most common in Telugu comes from an error in the source data. Tagalog puno (#393) is the highest real match.

See “tree” in all 48 languages →

#Flower in different languages

In most European languages the form in the data is the plural, probably because people usually talk about flowers in the plural. Afrikaans blomme (#410) leads, and it is plural too; Vietnamese hoa (#578) is the most common singular. Hindi फूल and Bengali ফুল are one word.

See “flower” in all 37 languages →

#Forest in different languages

Urdu جنگل (#208) is the most common, and it is where English gets “jungle”. Chinese 森林 is built from the character for tree: 林 is two trees, 森 is three.

See “forest” in all 45 languages →

#Nature in different languages

Nature is the rarest word here, with 31 languages; Tagalog kalikasan (#546) leads. Some rows on the full page mean a person’s nature instead, and the Romanian row is spelled fire, meaning “essence, nature”. For light, dark, moon and star with other languages, see powerful words in different languages. For universe, space, planet and night, see space words in different languages.

See “nature” in all 31 languages →

#Why Tagalog keeps coming out on top

Tagalog has the most common real match in seven of these sections: dagat (sea), bundok (mountain), ilog (river), araw (sun), tubig (water, one place ahead of Malayalam), puno (tree) and kalikasan (nature). Take that as a quirk of the data rather than proof that Filipinos talk about nature more. Each language’s list comes from a different set of films and shows, and araw also means “day”. If you’re learning Tagalog, though, it means these words are worth learning early. The Tagalog word list shows what else is near the top.

#Learn nature words by talking about where you live

Nature words stick when you attach them to real places: the river in your town, the mountains you can see, the rain this week. Weather and places are easy language exchange conversation topics, and there are environment questions for when you want to go deeper.

• Start with the weather. Rain, sun and wind come up in almost every chat, because everyone can say what it’s like outside today.
• Name the places near you. The river, the sea or the hills you can see from home are easier to remember than any list.
• Ask about the double meanings. Does your partner’s word for moon also mean month? Are sky and heaven one word for them? A table can’t tell you how those feel to a native speaker.

On LangX, you’re matched with people who speak the language you’re learning and are learning yours. Send a photo of the view from your window and describe it; if you get a word wrong, your partner can hold your message to correct it. Corrections are unlimited on every plan, and translation is built into the chat. 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 feelings, see emotion words in different languages. For greetings and survival words, see basic words in different languages. If a language uses another script, the alphabet pages show every letter.

#FAQ

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

Spanish mar, French mer, German Meer, Greek θάλασσα, Russian море, Arabic بحر, Turkish deniz, Korean 바다 and Tagalog dagat. The sea page has 46 languages.

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

Spanish montaña, French montagne, German Berg, Greek βουνό, Arabic جبل, Persian کوه, Georgian მთა, Korean 산 and Turkish dağ. The mountain page has 38 languages.

#Which nature words are found in every language?

In this data, fire and water are in all 53 languages. Earth and tree are in 48, while nature itself is in only 31.

#Why do some pages list a strange word as the most common?

The ranks come from counting spellings in subtitles. When a word for “sea” or “river” is spelled like a common verb, it ranks high for the wrong reason. We left those rows out and used the most common real match instead.