How to say “coffee” in 44 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 Urdu, where کافی is the 172nd most used word.
- Afrikaans koffie #301
- Arabic بن coffee beans, coffee #670
- Basque kafe #560
- Bengali কফি #500
- Bosnian kafa #2,286
- Bulgarian кафе #567
- Catalan cafè #806
- Chinese 咖啡 #254
- Croatian kava #1,874
- Czech kafe #1,086
- Danish kaffe #622
- Dutch koffie #666
- Esperanto kafon #1,039
- Estonian kohvi #653
- Finnish kahvia #974
- French café #588
- Galician café #598
- German kaffee #694
- Hebrew קפה #556
- Hungarian kávét #1,050
- Icelandic kaffi #514
- Italian caffè #1,251
- Korean 커피 coffee, especially the beverage #451
- Latvian kafiju #838
- Lithuanian kavos #500
- Macedonian кафе #497
- Malay kopi #697
- Malayalam കാപ്പി #394
- Norwegian kaffe #652
- Persian قهوه #476
- Polish kawę #1,418
- Portuguese café #608
- Romanian cafea #719
- Russian кофе #633
- Serbian kafa #1,932
- Slovak kávu #516
- Slovenian kava #824
- Spanish bar bar, coffee shop, café, pub #1,004
- Swedish kaffe #710
- Tagalog kape #1,463
- Tamil காபி #366
- Telugu కాఫీ #290
- Turkish kahve #568
- Urdu کافی #172
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.