How to say “free” 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 German, where los is the 93rd most used word.
- Afrikaans vry free, unconstrained #401
- Albanian falas #1,041
- Arabic أطلق to free, to liberate, to emancipate #491
- Armenian ազատ #448
- Basque askatu to free, to liberate #335
- Bengali মুক্ত #375
- Bosnian slobodan #996
- Bulgarian свободен #1,038
- Catalan lliure free, liberated #577
- Chinese 自由 free; unconstrained #190
- Croatian slobodan #1,014
- Czech volný #1,778
- Danish gratis gratis, free #1,151
- Dutch kalm calm, tranquil, free of noise and disturbance #1,305
- English quiet With little or no sound; free of disturbing… #650
- Esperanto libera #504
- Estonian ilma free of charge, on the house #221
- Finnish irti loose, unfastened, free, separate, detached #414
- French libre free, at liberty #779
- Galician libre free, not captive, unbound #539
- Georgian თავისუფალი #338
- German los rid of, free of #93
- Greek χωρίς without, -less, -free #163
- Hebrew חופשי #745
- Hindi मुक्त #652
- Hungarian szabad free to move or act according to one's will #397
- Icelandic frjáls #839
- Indonesian jelas free of ambiguity or doubt #339
- Italian libero #831
- Korean 무료 free, at no cost, free of charge #1,713
- Latvian brīvs #962
- Lithuanian laisvas #688
- Macedonian слободен #692
- Malay bebas #593
- Malayalam സ്വതന്ത്ര independent, free #1,180
- Norwegian fri free, not imprisoned or enslaved #534
- Persian آزاد #415
- Polish darmo free, gratis #2,451
- Portuguese livre #707
- Romanian liber free, at liberty #635
- Serbian slobodan #943
- Slovak slobodný #1,233
- Slovenian prost #757
- Spanish libre #628
- Swedish fri #828
- Tagalog ligtas safe; free from danger #346
- Telugu స్వేచ్ఛ free will #682
- Turkish serbest #782
- Ukrainian звільнити to free, to liberate, to release, to set free #1,666
- Urdu آزاد free, independent #447
- Vietnamese rảnh free; unoccupied; not busy #1,814
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.