How to say “aunt” in 37 different languages
Every one of these is a word that turns up in ordinary speech, not a dictionary curiosity — the number beside it is where it ranks in that language.
- דודה/ˈdoda/ Hebrew
- დეიდა[d̥e̞idä] Georgian
- അമ്മായി/ɐmmaːji/ Malayalam
“aunt” in French: tante · German: tante · Italian: zia · Portuguese: tia
It is commonest in Afrikaans, where tante is the 345th most used word.
Aunt in other languages, A to Z
- Afrikaans tante/ˈtɑ̃ntə/ #345
- Albanian teze/tɛzɛ/ maternal aunt #2,243
- Basque izeba/is̻eba/ #589
- Bengali ফুফু/fufu/ a father's sister; an aunt #1,859
- Bosnian tetka/têtka/ aunt by blood; the sister of one’s parent #1,614
- Bulgarian леля[ˈlɛlʲɐ] #1,081
- Catalan tia[ˈti.ə] #1,266
- Chinese 阿姨/ˀä⁵⁵ i³⁵/ maternal aunt #664
- Croatian teta/têta/ aunt by blood; the sister of one’s parent #1,718
- Czech teta[ˈtɛta] #2,126
- Danish tante/ˈtandə/ #1,401
- Dutch tante/ˈtɑn.tə/ #1,118
- Esperanto onklino/onˈklino/ #1,762
- Estonian tädi/ˈtæd̥i/ #922
- French tante/tɑ̃t/ #1,205
- Galician tía/ˈtiɐ/ #865
- Georgian დეიდა[d̥e̞idä] aunt, maternal aunt, a sister of one's mother… #532
- German tante/ˈtantə/ #1,128
- Hebrew דודה/ˈdoda/ #1,079
- Hungarian néni[ˈneːni] aunt, Mrs #2,247
- Icelandic frænka[ˈfraiŋ̊ka] an aunt #752
- Indonesian bibi/ˈbi.bi/ #967
- Italian zia/ˈd͡zi.a/ #1,314
- Korean 이모[imo̞] maternal aunt #1,260
- Latvian tante/ˈtante/ #1,774
- Lithuanian teta/tɛˈtɐ/ #801
- Macedonian тетка[ˈtɛtka] #1,038
- Malayalam അമ്മായി/ɐmmaːji/ #775
- Norwegian tante/ˈtɑntə/ #1,412
- Persian خاله[xɒː.le] maternal aunt #1,176
- Portuguese tia/ˈt͡ʃi.ɐ/ #1,229
- Serbian tetka/têtka/ aunt by blood; the sister of one’s parent #1,428
- Slovak teta/ceta/ #741
- Slovenian teta/tɛ̀ːta/ #572
- Tamil அத்தை/ɐt̪ːɐɪ̯/ paternal aunt #1,483
- Turkish hala/hɑˈɫɑ/ paternal aunt #160
- Vietnamese cô[ko˧˧] I/me, your paternal aunt #17
The speaker reads the word in the voice the LangX app uses for that language — synthesised, not a recording of a native speaker, so treat it as a guide. A row without a button has no reading we are free to use, or none we trust, yet. Voices for Bengali (google (bn_BD), CC BY-SA 4.0), Catalan (upc_ona (ca_ES), CC BY-SA 4.0), Estonian (news (et_EE), CC BY 4.0), Slovenian (artur (sl_SI), CC BY 4.0) and Vietnamese (vais1000 (vi_VN), CC BY 4.0).
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.