How to say “exist” in 36 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 Bosnian, where sam is the 8th most used word.
- Afrikaans bestaan to exist #349
- Armenian եղել to be, to exist #110
- Basque egon to be, exist #46
- Bosnian sam to be, to exist #8
- Catalan és to be, to exist #8
- Chinese 存在 to exist; to be; to be present #175
- Croatian sam to be, to exist #8
- Dutch was to be, to exist #27
- English thing That which is considered to exist as a… #137
- Esperanto ekzistas to exist #256
- French existe to exist #1,032
- Galician existe to exist #735
- Georgian არსებობს to exist #263
- German existiert to exist #2,263
- Greek υπάρχει to exist, be, live #89
- Hebrew יש there is or are; there exist; see usage notes… #14
- Hungarian megvan to exist #306
- Indonesian ada to be present, to exist, be there #15
- Italian esiste to exist, to be #1,042
- Latvian būtu to be, to exist #62
- Macedonian постои to exist #276
- Malayalam ഉണ്ട് to be, exist, be present, be located #36
- Norwegian finnes to be, exist, occur, be found #460
- Persian بود to exist #14
- Polish istnieje to exist #942
- Portuguese há there be; exist #51
- Romanian exista to exist #652
- Serbian sam to be, to exist #8
- Slovenian biti to be, to exist #84
- Spanish existe to exist #1,083
- Swedish finns to exist; to be #93
- Tagalog wala nothing; to not exist; there is no #34
- Tamil உள்ளது to be, exist #19
- Telugu కలుగు to live, exist #1,983
- Turkish olduğunu to become, come to exist, come into being #41
- Urdu ہیں to be, to exist #9
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.