How to say “eat” in 50 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 Vietnamese, where ăn is the 156th most used word.
- Afrikaans eet to eat #188
- Albanian ha to eat #399
- Arabic أكل to eat, to consume #800
- Armenian կեր to eat #1,093
- Bengali খাওয়া to eat #1,461
- Bosnian jeli to eat, consume #908
- Bulgarian яде to eat, to consume #1,230
- Catalan menjar to eat something solid #301
- Chinese 吃掉 to eat up; to consume #983
- Croatian jesti to eat, consume #781
- Czech jíst to eat #937
- Danish sulten hungry, wanting to eat #889
- Dutch eten to eat #273
- English feed To give food to eat #1,537
- Esperanto manĝi to eat #327
- Estonian süüa to eat #495
- Finnish syö to eat #857
- French manger to eat #454
- Galician comer to eat #365
- Georgian ჭამ to eat #1,135
- German gegessen to eat #1,345
- Hebrew אכל to eat #1,842
- Hindi खाता to eat, consume #557
- Hungarian enni to eat #1,024
- Icelandic éta to eat #756
- Indonesian makan to eat #163
- Italian mangiare to eat #574
- Korean 먹기 to eat, drink, have, consume #1,607
- Latvian ēst to eat #848
- Lithuanian valgyti to eat #628
- Macedonian јадење to eat #943
- Malay makan to eat #176
- Malayalam തിന്നു to eat #686
- Norwegian spise to eat #427
- Persian خورد to eat #592
- Polish zjeść to eat; to eat up #1,214
- Romanian mâncat to eat #965
- Russian ешь to eat #1,895
- Serbian jeli to eat, consume #1,128
- Slovak jedlo to eat #375
- Slovenian jesti to eat #508
- Spanish comer to eat #486
- Swedish äta to eat #437
- Tagalog kumain to eat #341
- Tamil கடி to bite, bite off; to bite and eat; to crop,… #1,349
- Telugu కుడుచు to eat #725
- Turkish yer to eat #198
- Ukrainian їсти to eat #723
- Urdu کھانا to eat #209
- Vietnamese ăn to eat #156
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.