How to say “fight” in 51 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 chiến is the 226th most used word.
- Afrikaans veg to fight #366
- Albanian luftë war, fight #499
- Arabic قاتل to combat, to battle, to fight #501
- Armenian կռվել to fight #1,110
- Basque borroka battle, fight, combat #334
- Bengali লড়াই conflict, fight, contention #1,785
- Bosnian boriti to fight, struggle #1,196
- Bulgarian битка battle, fight, engagement, fray #1,137
- Chinese 打架 to come to blows; to fight; to scuffle #700
- Croatian boriti to fight, struggle #950
- Czech bojovat to fight #834
- Danish kæmpede fight, struggle, battle #1,801
- Dutch vechten to fight #659
- English victor The winner in a fight or contest #2,391
- Esperanto batali to fight #962
- Estonian võitlema to fight, to struggle, to contend #1,209
- Finnish taistella to fight, struggle #2,024
- French combat to fight, to combat #1,029
- Galician loita to fight, to struggle #508
- Georgian ჩხუბი fight, fray, quarrel, scrimmage, skirmish,… #676
- German streit quarrel, dispute, fight, argument #1,731
- Greek αγώνα fight, efforts, struggle #1,002
- Hebrew נלחם to fight, wage war #1,297
- Hindi लड़ाई fight, argument #391
- Hungarian harcolni to fight #1,866
- Icelandic berjast to fight, to brawl, to quarrell #421
- Italian combattere to fight; to combat #1,311
- Korean 싸움 fighting, fight, quarrel, battle, contest #1,469
- Latvian cīnīties to fight #1,015
- Lithuanian kova fight, struggle #705
- Macedonian битка battle, fight #1,199
- Malay berjuang to struggle; to fight; to strive #711
- Malayalam പോരാട്ടം #886
- Norwegian slåss to fight #742
- Persian نبرد battle, fight, combat #1,137
- Polish walczyć to fight #961
- Portuguese lutar to fight #720
- Romanian lupte fight, fighting #1,548
- Russian бороться to fight, to wrestle, to struggle, to strive #1,985
- Serbian borba #1,463
- Slovak bojovať to fight #482
- Slovenian boriti to fight, struggle #610
- Spanish pelea to fight #1,093
- Swedish slåss to fistfight punch, to fight #783
- Tagalog laban fight; quarrel #348
- Tamil சண்டை fight, conflict #638
- Telugu పోరాటం fight, fighting #429
- Turkish dövüş #1,685
- Ukrainian битися to fight, to struggle #1,180
- Urdu لڑائی #476
- Vietnamese chiến a war, fight #226
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.