How to say “good” in 53 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 Basque, where ondo is the 20th most used word.
- Afrikaans goed #49
- Albanian mirëmëngjes good morning #935
- Arabic جيد of good quality, excellent, approvable #73
- Armenian լավ good, fine, OK #48
- Basque ondo well, good, alright #20
- Bengali শুভ good, fair #247
- Bosnian dobar #168
- Bulgarian добър #193
- Catalan millor #141
- Chinese 不好 bad; not good; poor #114
- Croatian dobar #164
- Czech dobrý #131
- Danish god #141
- Dutch beter #181
- English goodness The state or characteristic of being good #1,891
- Esperanto bona #112
- Estonian hea #56
- Finnish hyvä #34
- French bon #92
- Galician mellor #114
- Georgian გამარჯობა hello, how do you do, good afternoon #180
- German besser #201
- Greek καλό #134
- Hebrew טוב well, good #22
- Hindi अच्छी good, nice, fine #199
- Hungarian legjobb good -ra/-re, good at something -ban/-ben,… #218
- Icelandic góður #551
- Indonesian baik good, nice, decent #44
- Italian bravo good, well-behaved #507
- Korean 좋아 to be good; great; excellent #47
- Latvian labs good following accepted moral rules, treating… #179
- Lithuanian geras #164
- Macedonian добар #136
- Malay baik #48
- Malayalam നല്ല #25
- Norwegian god #116
- Persian بهتر #171
- Polish dobra #89
- Portuguese legal cool, nice, good #1,758
- Romanian bună #78
- Russian отлично very good, very well, excellently, perfectly #217
- Serbian dobar #168
- Slovak dobrý #126
- Slovenian dobro well, good #42
- Spanish bueno #50
- Swedish bättre #183
- Tagalog suwerte luck; good luck #1,665
- Tamil நல்ல #38
- Telugu మంచి #31
- Turkish günaydın good morning #483
- Ukrainian добрий good, benign, genial, gentle, kind, kindly #406
- Urdu درست in good condition; unbroken, in working order #299
- Vietnamese tốt good, as in high-quality, well-made, well… #103
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.