How to say “bad” in 52 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.
It is commonest in Russian, where ничего is the 74th most used word.
- Afrikaans sleg #257
- Albanian keqe bad, evil, wicked, naughty #268
- Arabic سيئة bad deed, misdeed #273
- Armenian չարիք evil, harm, something bad #456
- Basque gaizki bad, badly #193
- Bengali খারাপ bad; gone bad; evil #136
- Bosnian loše bad, malicious #301
- Bulgarian лош bad, foul, inferior #763
- Catalan dolent #696
- Chinese 不好 bad; not good; poor #114
- Croatian loše bad, malicious #313
- Czech špatné #652
- Danish værre worse, more bad, more badly #564
- Dutch slecht #374
- English worst In a bad manner #1,108
- Esperanto malbona #354
- Estonian halb #443
- Finnish huono bad, poor #589
- French mauvais #513
- Galician malo #555
- Georgian ცუდი #231
- German schlechte bad, evil, wicked #1,237
- Greek κακό bad, evil, ill, wicked #367
- Hebrew רע An evil, trouble; something bad #248
- Hindi बुरा #296
- Hungarian rossz bad, unpleasant, unfavorable, foul #164
- Icelandic slæmur #982
- Indonesian buruk #208
- Italian brutto ugly, bad, nasty #868
- Latvian slikti bad, badly; adverbial form of slikts #378
- Lithuanian bloga bad, wrong #535
- Macedonian лош bad, poor #522
- Malay jahat bad, evil #440
- Malayalam മോശം #214
- Norwegian verre #582
- Persian بدتر bad; not good #612
- Polish nieźle not bad, well #623
- Portuguese mau #440
- Romanian rea #1,003
- Russian ничего so-so, not bad, fair #74
- Serbian loše bad, malicious #280
- Slovak zle bad, badly #325
- Slovenian slab #394
- Spanish malo #475
- Swedish dåligt bad, badly #705
- Tagalog masama evil; bad #322
- Tamil கெட்ட bad, harmful #351
- Telugu కు in composition signifies bad, vile #83
- Turkish kötü #107
- Ukrainian погано #473
- Urdu برا #295
- Vietnamese tệ #408
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.