How to say “drive” in 33 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 kör is the 254th most used word.
- Albanian çmend to drive someone crazy #2,044
- Arabic طرد to push away, drive away, repel #1,641
- Bengali চালানো to drive; to pilot #1,044
- Bosnian voziti to drive #1,380
- Bulgarian карам to drive, to conduct #1,091
- Chinese 開車 to drive #1,923
- Croatian voziti to drive #1,068
- Danish kører to drive #346
- Dutch station disk drive #1,860
- Estonian ajab to drive #754
- Finnish ajaa to drive, ride, travel, transport #838
- French conduire to drive #1,187
- Galician conducir to drive #1,614
- Georgian გაატარებს to drive #1,515
- German treiben to drive; to propel; to force #2,418
- Greek οδηγεί to drive #1,506
- Icelandic keyra #700
- Indonesian mengendarai to drive #2,198
- Lithuanian važiuoti to go by vehicle, drive, ride #485
- Macedonian вози to drive #627
- Malay halau to drive away #1,703
- Malayalam ഡ്രൈവ് #862
- Norwegian kjøre To drive #511
- Polish spędzić to drive #1,979
- Russian ехать to go, to ride, to drive #1,072
- Serbian voziti to drive #1,747
- Slovak šoférovať to drive #1,174
- Slovenian voziti to drive vehicle #712
- Spanish conducir to drive; to conduct #1,663
- Swedish kör to drive a vehicle #254
- Tagalog ya expression used to drive cattle: yah #278
- Tamil ஓட்டு to drive #993
- Ukrainian вбити to beat in, to drive in, to hammer in, to… #478
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.