How to say “bread” in 33 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.
- pan/ˈpan/ Spanish
- ψωμί/psoˈmi/ Greek
- לחם/ˈlaħm/ Hebrew
- ரொட்டி/ɾoʈːiː/ Tamil
- റൊട്ടി/roʈʈi/ Malayalam
- نون[núːn] Persian
“bread” in Spanish: pan · German: brot · Italian: pane · Portuguese: pão · Turkish: ekmek · Greek: ψωμί
It is commonest in Galician, where pan is the 691st most used word.
Bread in other languages, A to Z
- Afrikaans brood/brʊə̯t/ A loaf of bread #721
- Albanian bukë/bukə/ #1,627
- Basque ogi/oɡi/ #948
- Bulgarian хляб[xlʲa̟p] a loaf of bread #1,919
- Catalan pa[ˈpa] #1,328
- Croatian kruh/krûx/ #2,297
- Dutch brood/broːt/ #2,151
- English toast/toʊst/ Bread that has been toasted #2,310
- Esperanto panon/ˈpanon/ #1,368
- Estonian leiba/ˈlei̯b̥ɑ/ bread, black bread #1,923
- French fric/fʁik/ dosh, dough, bread #1,135
- Galician pan/ˈpaŋ/ #691
- German brot/bʁoːt/ #2,369
- Greek ψωμί/psoˈmi/ #1,900
- Hebrew לחם/ˈlaħm/ #1,527
- Indonesian roti/ˈroti/ #1,210
- Italian pane/ˈpa.ne/ #2,140
- Lithuanian duonos[¹ˈduɔnoːs] #1,254
- Macedonian леб[lɛp] #1,628
- Malay roti[ro.ti] #1,038
- Malayalam റൊട്ടി/roʈʈi/ #1,062
- Persian نون[núːn] bread, including the kind called naan in… #1,240
- Portuguese pão/ˈpɐ̃w̃/ #2,057
- Romanian pâine/ˈpɨj.ne/ #1,887
- Serbian hleb/xlêb/ #2,192
- Slovak chlieb/xʎɪ̯ep/ #1,299
- Slovenian kruh/krúx/ #836
- Spanish pan/ˈpan/ #1,504
- Swedish bröt/brøːt/ #1,282
- Tagalog tinapay/tiˈnapaj/ #1,541
- Tamil ரொட்டி/ɾoʈːiː/ #1,381
- Turkish ekmek/ecˈmec/ #1,576
- Urdu روٹی/ɾoː.ʈiː/ #748
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.