How to say “dog” in 53 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.
- perro/ˈpero/ Spanish
- собака[sɐˈbakə] Russian
- كلب/kalb/ Arabic
- 개[kɛ(ː)] Korean
- σκυλί/sciˈli/ Greek
- כלב/kalb/ Hebrew
“dog” in Spanish: perro · French: chien · German: hund · Italian: cane · Portuguese: cão · Korean: 개 · Russian: собака · Arabic: كلب
It is commonest in Tagalog, where aso is the 223rd most used word.
Dog in other languages, A to Z
- Afrikaans hond/ɦɔnt/ #454
- Albanian qen/cɕɛn/ #627
- Arabic كلب/kalb/ #624
- Armenian շուն/ʃun/ #477
- Basque txakur/t͡ʃakur/ #471
- Bengali কুকুর/kukuɾ/ #585
- Bosnian pas/pâs/ #775
- Bulgarian куче[ˈkut͡ʃɛ] dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #739
- Catalan gos[ˈɡos] #634
- Chinese 狗屎/koʊ̯²¹⁴⁻³⁵ ʂɻ̩²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾/ dog faeces; dog shit #476
- Croatian pas/pâs/ #777
- Czech pes[ˈpɛs] #1,116
- Danish hund[hunˀ] #665
- Dutch hond/ɦɔnt/ #638
- English bitch/bɪt͡ʃ/ A female dog or other canine, particularly a… #605
- Esperanto hundo/ˈhundo/ #819
- Estonian koer/ˈkoe̯r/ #690
- Finnish koira/ˈkoi̯rɑ/ #1,073
- French chien/ʃjɛ̃/ #584
- Galician can/ˈkaŋ/ #575
- Georgian ძაღლები[d͡zäʁle̞bi] #626
- German hund/hʊnt/ dog, hound #665
- Greek σκυλί/sciˈli/ #1,357
- Hebrew כלב/kalb/ dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #635
- Hindi कुतिया/kʊ.t̪ɪ.jɑː/ bitch, female dog #717
- Hungarian kutya[ˈkucɒ] #1,010
- Icelandic tík[ˈtʰiːk] a bitch, a female dog #689
- Indonesian anjing/ˈand͡ʒiŋ/ dog, Canis familiaris #431
- Italian cane/ˈka.ne/ dog, male dog #717
- Korean 개[kɛ(ː)] #340
- Latvian suns/ˈsuns/ domestic dog #703
- Lithuanian šuo[²ˈʃuɔ] #656
- Macedonian куче[ˈkut͡ʃɛ] #439
- Malay anjing[aɲd͡ʒeŋ] #382
- Malayalam പട്ടി/pɐʈʈi/ #457
- Norwegian hund/hʉnː/ dog; hound #972
- Persian سگ[sæɡʲ̥] #395
- Polish pies/ˈpjɛs/ #1,280
- Portuguese cão/ˈkɐ̃w̃/ #672
- Romanian câine/ˈkɨj.ne/ #969
- Russian собака[sɐˈbakə] #1,668
- Serbian pas/pâs/ #779
- Slovak pes/pes/ #563
- Slovenian pes/pə́s/ #362
- Spanish perro/ˈpero/ dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #617
- Swedish hund/hɵnd/ a dog, a hound #830
- Tagalog aso/ˈʔaso/ #223
- Tamil நாய்/nɑːj/ #530
- Telugu కుక్క/kukːa/ dog, a domesticated canine #229
- Turkish köpek/cøˈpec/ #601
- Ukrainian пес[pɛs] #740
- Urdu کتا/kʊt̪.t̪ɑː/ #1,460
- Vietnamese chó[t͡ɕɔ˧˦] #481
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 Bengali (google (bn_BD), CC BY-SA 4.0), Catalan (upc_ona (ca_ES), CC BY-SA 4.0), Estonian (news (et_EE), CC BY 4.0), Slovenian (artur (sl_SI), CC BY 4.0) and Vietnamese (vais1000 (vi_VN), CC BY 4.0).
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.