How to say “battle” in 42 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 Georgian, where ბრძოლა is the 313th most used word.
- Afrikaans geveg fight, battle, engagement #526
- Albanian betejë #1,253
- Arabic قاتل to combat, to battle, to fight #501
- Basque borroka battle, fight, combat #334
- Bengali সংগ্রাম fight, struggle; battle; war #1,788
- Bosnian boj #2,384
- Bulgarian битка battle, fight, engagement, fray #1,137
- Catalan batalla #907
- Chinese 打仗 to fight a battle; to go to war #1,052
- Croatian boj #2,498
- Danish kamp battle, struggle #670
- Dutch gevecht fight, combat, battle, struggle #1,173
- Esperanto batalo #1,145
- Estonian võitlus fight, battle #1,314
- French bataille #1,806
- Galician batalla #688
- Georgian ბრძოლა #313
- German kämpfen struggle, battle, campaign, fight #839
- Greek μάχη battle, combat #894
- Hebrew מלחמה war, battle #757
- Hindi जंग war, battle #1,370
- Hungarian harc battle, fight #2,102
- Icelandic bardaga battle, combat, fight #1,051
- Indonesian pertempuran #1,069
- Italian battaglia #1,446
- Korean 전투 battle; fighting #881
- Latvian kaujas battle, fight #1,189
- Lithuanian mūšis #1,970
- Macedonian борба struggle, battle, combat #557
- Malay pertempuran #964
- Persian نبرد battle, fight, combat #1,137
- Polish walki battle, combat, fight #1,165
- Portuguese batalha #1,373
- Romanian luptă to battle #726
- Serbian boj #2,323
- Slovak boj fight, battle, conflict #697
- Spanish batalla #1,337
- Tagalog digmaan war; battle #725
- Tamil போர் war, fight, battle #882
- Ukrainian бій battle, combat, fight, fighting #1,454
- Urdu لڑنا to fight, combat; battle #1,899
- Vietnamese đấu to battle, fight #394
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.