How to say “beautiful” in 46 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 Turkish, where güzel is the 54th most used word.
- Afrikaans mooi beautiful, pretty #116
- Albanian bukur #106
- Arabic جميل #192
- Armenian չքնաղ very beautiful, marvelous, ravishing #235
- Basque ederra beautiful, pretty, handsome #159
- Bengali সুন্দর beautiful, pretty #147
- Bulgarian красив beautiful, lovely, fair, well-favoured,… #1,247
- Catalan maca beautiful, pretty #1,060
- Chinese 漂亮 pretty; beautiful; handsome #110
- Czech krásná #1,017
- Danish smuk beautiful, handsome, good-looking #530
- Dutch mooi beautiful, pretty, handsome #236
- Esperanto bela beautiful, pretty #211
- Estonian ilus beautiful, pretty #373
- Finnish kaunis beautiful, pretty, fair #439
- Galician fermosa #835
- Georgian ლამაზი beautiful, handsome #197
- German schöne beautiful, lovely, pretty, handsome #817
- Greek όμορφη beautiful, pretty, handsome #547
- Hindi सुंदर beautiful, pretty; good-looking, handsome #297
- Hungarian szép #159
- Icelandic fallegt beautiful, pretty, pulchritudinous #358
- Indonesian cantik pretty, beautiful #349
- Korean 예쁜 to be pretty, lovely, beautiful, comely #491
- Latvian skaista #522
- Lithuanian graži #352
- Macedonian убава beautiful, pretty #377
- Malay cantik beautiful, good-looking, pretty #283
- Malayalam മനോഹരമായ #404
- Norwegian vakker #656
- Persian خوشگل beautiful, handsome, good-looking #630
- Polish piękna #884
- Portuguese linda beautiful; gorgeous #678
- Romanian frumoasă #490
- Russian прекрасный #1,550
- Slovak krásne #536
- Slovenian lep beautiful; handsome #299
- Spanish hermosa gorgeous, beautiful, handsome, lovely #850
- Swedish vacker #581
- Tagalog maganda #138
- Tamil அழகிய beautiful, lovely, charming #1,363
- Telugu అందగత్తె beautiful female #1,455
- Turkish güzel #54
- Ukrainian гарний beautiful, pretty, handsome #677
- Urdu خوبصورت #214
- Vietnamese đẹp #272
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.