How to say “badly” in 34 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.
- mal/ˈmal/ Spanish
- άσχημα/ˈasçiˌma/ Greek
- ცუდად[t͡sʰudätʰ] Georgian
- վատ/vɑt/ Armenian
“badly” in Spanish: mal · French: mal · German: schlecht · Italian: male · Portuguese: mal · Greek: άσχημα
It is commonest in Romanian, where rău is the 92nd most used word.
Badly in other languages, A to Z
- Albanian hall/ˈhaɫ/ badly, wrongly #2,050
- Armenian վատ/vɑt/ #210
- Basque gaizki/ɡai̯s̻ki/ bad, badly #193
- Bulgarian лошо[ˈɫɔʃo̟] badly, not well #364
- Catalan mal[ˈmal] badly, poorly #240
- Czech špatně[ˈʃpatɲɛ] #507
- Danish værre/vɛrə/ worse, more bad, more badly #564
- Dutch nodig/ˈnoːdəx/ necessarily, badly, urgently #118
- English bad/bæd/ Badly; poorly #225
- Esperanto malbone/malˈbone/ #341
- Estonian halvasti/ˈhɑlvɑsti/ badly, poorly #831
- Finnish huonosti/ˈhuo̯nostiˣ/ badly, poorly #1,251
- French mal/mal/ #163
- Galician mal/ˈmal/ #208
- Georgian ცუდად[t͡sʰudätʰ] badly, ill #387
- German schlecht/ʃlɛçt/ badly, poorly, not well #550
- Greek άσχημα/ˈasçiˌma/ #544
- Hungarian rosszul[ˈrosːul] #555
- Icelandic illa/ˈɪtla/ badly, poorly #224
- Italian male/ˈma.le/ badly, wrongly #197
- Latvian slikti/ˈslikti/ bad, badly; adverbial form of slikts #378
- Lithuanian blogai[²ˈbloːɡɐɪ] badly, poorly #286
- Macedonian лошо[ˈɫɔʃɔ] badly, poorly #221
- Norwegian dårlig/ˈdoːɭɪ/ badly, poorly #356
- Persian بد[bæd̪̥] poorly, badly #206
- Polish źle/ˈʑlɛ/ badly, wrongly #398
- Portuguese mal/ˈmaw/ #211
- Romanian rău/rəw/ badly, poorly #92
- Russian плохо[ˈpɫoxə] bad, badly #395
- Slovak zle/zʎe/ bad, badly #325
- Slovenian slabo/slabóː/ #211
- Spanish mal/ˈmal/ badly, poorly, ill #218
- Swedish illa[ˈɪlˌla] #346
- Ukrainian непогано[nepɔˈɦanɔ] not bad, not badly, quite well #947
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 Catalan (upc_ona (ca_ES), CC BY-SA 4.0), Estonian (news (et_EE), CC BY 4.0) and Slovenian (artur (sl_SI), CC BY 4.0).
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.