How to say “finger” in 40 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 Chinese, where 手指 is the 562nd most used word.
- Afrikaans vingers #1,037
- Albanian gisht #1,572
- Basque hatz #829
- Bengali আঙ্গুল finger, toe #817
- Bosnian prst #1,622
- Bulgarian пръст #1,774
- Catalan dits finger, toe #1,412
- Chinese 手指 #562
- Croatian prst #1,655
- Czech prst #2,485
- Danish fingre #1,750
- Dutch vingers #1,722
- Esperanto fingroj #1,156
- Estonian sõrm #2,238
- French doigts #1,530
- Galician dedo #1,886
- German finger #994
- Greek δαχτυλίδι ring for the finger #1,444
- Hebrew אצבע #1,418
- Hindi उंगलियों #1,419
- Icelandic fingur #1,445
- Indonesian jari digit, finger #1,081
- Italian dita #1,832
- Korean 손가락 #860
- Latvian pirkstu finger, toe #1,002
- Macedonian прсти #1,685
- Malay jari #762
- Malayalam വിരല് #876
- Norwegian fingrene a finger #1,991
- Persian انگشت #926
- Portuguese tocar to touch, to finger, to feel #877
- Romanian degetul #1,632
- Serbian prst #1,627
- Slovak prst #1,209
- Slovenian prst #747
- Spanish dedos #1,684
- Tamil விரல் finger, toe #750
- Turkish parmak finger, toe, digit #948
- Urdu انگلی #1,355
- Vietnamese ấn to press with one's finger #907
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.