How to say “gold” in 48 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 Bengali, where সোনা is the 270th most used word.
- Afrikaans goud #1,052
- Albanian artë made of gold, of gold #1,256
- Armenian ոսկի #849
- Basque urrezko #617
- Bengali সোনা #270
- Bosnian zlato #1,112
- Bulgarian злато #1,506
- Catalan or #712
- Chinese 金子 #1,399
- Croatian zlato #1,086
- Czech zlato #313
- Danish guld #1,350
- Dutch goud #1,306
- English gold of or referring to a gold version of something #874
- Esperanto oro #569
- Estonian kulla #1,584
- Finnish kulta #303
- French louis a louis: various gold and silver coins issued… #2,100
- Galician ouro #698
- Georgian ოქროს #713
- German gold #1,205
- Greek χρυσό golden, gold #1,282
- Hebrew זהב #992
- Hindi सोना #1,689
- Hungarian arany #1,777
- Icelandic gull #1,243
- Indonesian emas #781
- Italian oro #1,106
- Korean 금 gold; golden #1,700
- Latvian zelta #704
- Lithuanian aukso #794
- Macedonian злато #746
- Malay emas #555
- Malayalam സ്വർണ്ണം #1,308
- Norwegian gull #1,288
- Persian طلا #1,099
- Portuguese ouro #992
- Romanian aur #958
- Serbian zlato #1,148
- Slovak zlato #284
- Slovenian zlato #541
- Spanish oro #946
- Swedish guld #1,485
- Tagalog ginto #854
- Tamil தங்கம் gold, pure gold #1,008
- Telugu బంగారు of or pertaining to gold #908
- Turkish altına gold, a yellow, elemental metal of great… #735
- Ukrainian золото #1,287
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.