How to say “doctor” in 53 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 Persian, where دکتر is the 180th most used word.
- Afrikaans dokter medical doctor, physician #245
- Albanian doktor a male doctor #424
- Arabic دكتور #297
- Armenian բժիշկ doctor, physician #336
- Basque mediku doctor, physician #591
- Bengali ডাক্তার #338
- Bosnian doktor doctor, physician #648
- Bulgarian доктор male doctor #706
- Catalan doctor #432
- Chinese 醫生 doctor; physician and surgeon; medical… #482
- Croatian doktor doctor, physician #768
- Czech doktor doctor, physician #612
- Danish doktor #742
- Dutch dokter #398
- English doc A doctor #1,515
- Esperanto kuracisto doctor, physician #658
- Estonian doktor #538
- Finnish tohtori doctor, one with a doctorate #309
- French docteur a doctor #426
- Galician doutor doctor, physician #611
- Georgian ექიმმა physician, doctor #1,336
- German doktor #659
- Greek γιατρός doctor, healer #649
- Hebrew דוקטור #574
- Hindi डॉक्टर #549
- Hungarian doktor doctor, physician #537
- Icelandic læknir medical practitioner, doctor, MD #441
- Indonesian dokter doctor, a physician; a member of the medical… #354
- Italian dottore #531
- Korean 의사 #454
- Latvian ārsts doctor, physician #1,345
- Lithuanian daktaras #454
- Macedonian доктор #547
- Malay doktor doctor; physician #387
- Malayalam ഡോക്റ്റർ #685
- Norwegian doktor #761
- Persian دکتر doctor, physician #180
- Polish doktorze physician, medical doctor #680
- Portuguese doutor a doctor #705
- Romanian doctor #666
- Russian доктор #227
- Serbian doktor doctor, physician #617
- Slovak doktor doctor, physician #231
- Slovenian zdravnik doctor, physician #388
- Spanish médico #696
- Swedish doktorn doctor; physician #787
- Tagalog doktor doctor; physician #710
- Tamil டாக்டர் doctor, physician #237
- Telugu చికిత్సకుడు a physician, doctor #1,388
- Turkish doktor doctor, physician #257
- Ukrainian лікар #867
- Urdu ڈاکٹر #182
- Vietnamese đốc headmaster, chief, doctor #1,073
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.