How to say “dance” in 52 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 Swedish, where ska is the 30th most used word.
- Afrikaans dans #346
- Albanian kërcej to dance #1,704
- Arabic رقصة a dance #1,824
- Armenian պար #693
- Basque dantza dance, dancing #469
- Bengali নৃত্য #2,164
- Bosnian ples #1,146
- Bulgarian танц #2,076
- Catalan ballar to dance #1,454
- Chinese 跳舞 to dance #291
- Croatian ples #1,098
- Czech tanec #2,021
- Danish danse a dance #993
- Dutch dansen #966
- English shows A play, dance, or other entertainment #1,407
- Esperanto danci to dance #1,930
- Estonian tantsima to dance #1,593
- Finnish tanssia to dance #2,038
- French danse to dance #1,123
- Galician bailar to dance #1,002
- Georgian ცეკვა #621
- German tanzen to dance #1,013
- Greek χορό #1,116
- Hebrew ריקוד #1,462
- Hindi नृत्य dance; dancing #1,107
- Hungarian táncolni to dance #1,906
- Icelandic dansa to dance #505
- Indonesian dansa Western-style partner dance #1,797
- Italian ballo to dance #1,098
- Korean 춤 #840
- Latvian dejot to dance #1,715
- Lithuanian šokis #1,847
- Macedonian танц dance, dancing #1,612
- Malay menari To dance #615
- Malayalam നൃത്തം #414
- Norwegian danse to dance #1,044
- Persian رقص #624
- Portuguese dançar to dance #1,097
- Romanian dans #1,225
- Russian танцевать to dance #2,078
- Serbian ples #1,145
- Slovak tanec #934
- Slovenian ples #449
- Spanish baile to dance #1,026
- Swedish ska ska; a style of dance music #30
- Tagalog sayaw #2,196
- Tamil நடனம் #760
- Telugu నటన a dance, dancing #685
- Turkish dans #482
- Ukrainian танцювати to dance #2,168
- Urdu رقص dance, dancing #710
- Vietnamese múa to dance religiously or artistically by… #1,924
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.