How to say “both” in 36 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 вот is the 53rd most used word.
- Afrikaans kaptein captain, both in the land and naval senses of… #426
- Arabic كلا #71
- Bengali উভয় #1,229
- Bosnian oboje #583
- Croatian oboje #549
- Czech oba #437
- Danish begge #312
- Dutch allebei #601
- English history The aggregate of past events, both unrecorded… #790
- Esperanto ambaŭ #450
- Estonian mõlema both, the two #1,411
- Finnish molemmat #594
- Galician ambos #1,234
- Georgian ორივე #333
- German beide #315
- Hindi दोनों #264
- Hungarian mindketten #614
- Icelandic bæði #1,636
- Indonesian keduanya both; both of them, they both #1,158
- Italian sia both ... and #83
- Korean 양 two; both #315
- Latvian gan both, and #69
- Lithuanian abu #282
- Malay berdua #265
- Norwegian begge #330
- Polish oboje #912
- Portuguese ambos #698
- Romanian amândoi #534
- Russian вот Used before; both before and after; or after… #53
- Serbian oboje #594
- Slovak oba #1,805
- Spanish ambos #719
- Swedish båda both; either, each of two #365
- Tagalog ta by both you and I; of both you and I #1,329
- Telugu ఇద్దరు each of the two; one and the other; both #770
- Ukrainian оба #746
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.