How to say “dog” 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 Tagalog, where aso is the 223rd most used word.
- Afrikaans hond #454
- Albanian qen #627
- Arabic كلب #624
- Armenian շուն #477
- Basque txakur #471
- Bengali কুকুর #585
- Bosnian pas #775
- Bulgarian куче dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #739
- Catalan gos #634
- Chinese 狗屎 dog faeces; dog shit #476
- Croatian pas #777
- Czech pes #1,116
- Danish hund #665
- Dutch hond #638
- English bitch A female dog or other canine, particularly a… #605
- Esperanto hundo #819
- Estonian koer #690
- Finnish koira #1,073
- French chien #584
- Galician can #575
- Georgian ძაღლები #626
- German hund dog, hound #665
- Greek σκυλί #1,357
- Hebrew כלב dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #635
- Hindi कुतिया bitch, female dog #717
- Hungarian kutya #1,010
- Icelandic tík a bitch, a female dog #689
- Indonesian anjing dog, Canis familiaris #431
- Italian cane dog, male dog #717
- Korean 개 #340
- Latvian suns domestic dog #703
- Lithuanian šuo #656
- Macedonian куче #439
- Malay anjing #382
- Malayalam പട്ടി #457
- Norwegian hund dog; hound #972
- Persian سگ #395
- Polish pies #1,280
- Portuguese cão #672
- Romanian câine #969
- Russian собака #1,668
- Serbian pas #779
- Slovak pes #563
- Slovenian pes #362
- Spanish perro dog, domesticated for thousands of years and… #617
- Swedish hund a dog, a hound #830
- Tagalog aso #223
- Tamil நாய் #530
- Telugu కుక్క dog, a domesticated canine #229
- Turkish köpek #601
- Ukrainian пес #740
- Urdu کتا #1,460
- Vietnamese chó #481
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.