How to say “fast” 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 Malayalam, where പെട്ടെന്ന് is the 107th most used word.
- Afrikaans vinnig quick, fast #409
- Albanian shpejt quickly, fast #164
- Arabic أسرع to be fast #392
- Armenian արագ fast, quickly, rapidly #237
- Basque azkar fast, quickly #145
- Bengali দ্রুত fast, quick, apace #239
- Bosnian brz #2,119
- Bulgarian бързо quickly, fast #255
- Catalan ràpida rapid; quick; fast; speedy #2,410
- Croatian brz #2,136
- Czech rychlý #2,360
- Danish hurtig quick, rapid, fast #1,310
- Dutch snel fast, quick, rapid #249
- English quickly Rapidly; with speed; fast; with expedition #873
- Esperanto rapida quick, fast, rapid #1,749
- Estonian kiiresti fast, quickly #370
- Finnish kovaa fast, hard, loud #1,534
- French rapide fast; rapidly; quickly #1,230
- Galician rápida #2,056
- Georgian ჩქარა fast, quickly, rapidly #997
- German schneller quick, fast #872
- Greek γρήγορα quickly, fast #230
- Hebrew מהר quickly, rapidly, fast #233
- Hindi दौड़ running; fast movement #1,527
- Hungarian gyorsan quickly, swiftly, fast, rapidly #281
- Icelandic fljótur swift, quick, fast #2,112
- Indonesian cepat swift; fast: moving with great speed, or… #128
- Italian veloce fast, quick, speedy, rapid #845
- Korean 빨리빨리 quickly; fast #2,482
- Latvian ātri fast, quick, quickly; adverbial form of ātrs #248
- Lithuanian greit quickly, fast #355
- Macedonian брзо fast, quickly, rapidly #225
- Malay cepat quick, fast, rapid, apace, prompt #115
- Malayalam പെട്ടെന്ന് quickly, fast #107
- Norwegian fort fast, quick, quickly #338
- Persian محکم tight, firm, fast #721
- Polish szybko quickly, rapidly, fast, swiftly #251
- Portuguese rápida #2,149
- Romanian repede fast, quickly, rapidly #247
- Russian быстро fast, quickly, rapidly #376
- Serbian brz #1,940
- Slovak rýchly fast, quick #1,230
- Slovenian hitro fast, quickly #158
- Spanish rápido rapidly, quickly, fast #310
- Swedish fort quickly/quick, fast #397
- Tagalog mabilis fast; swift; rapid; speedy #340
- Turkish hızlı fast, rapid, quick #394
- Ukrainian швидко fast, quickly #380
- Urdu تیز fast, quick #545
- Vietnamese nhanh fast; quickly #220
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.