How to say “great” in 43 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 Malayalam, where വളരെ is the 23rd most used word.
- Afrikaans groot great; big; large #128
- Albanian merak great curiosity #975
- Arabic رائع great, wonderful #95
- Basque primerako top-class, great #1,370
- Bengali প্রচুর great in amount #712
- Bosnian sjajno great, magnificently, excellently #416
- Bulgarian супер great, awesome, superb #451
- Catalan preciosa precious, of great value #1,089
- Chinese 要死 to a great degree #634
- Croatian sjajno great, magnificently, excellently #446
- Czech hodně very; to a great degree or extent #191
- Dutch grote big, large, great #247
- English very To a great extent or degree #114
- Esperanto bonega great, very good #742
- Estonian suurepärane excellent, great, magnificent,… #337
- Finnish iso big, large, great #405
- French cool cool! great! #620
- Georgian დიდი big, large, great #66
- German toll great, nice, wonderful #387
- Greek μεγάλη big, large, great #283
- Hebrew נהדר great, wonderful #199
- Hindi महान great, respected, renowned #352
- Hungarian nagy big, great #93
- Indonesian lama long: having great duration; seemingly… #164
- Italian molti a lot of, much, great, many, a lot of, lots of #604
- Korean 좋아 to be good; great; excellent #47
- Latvian lieliski great, wonderful, excellent, wonderfully,… #149
- Macedonian голема big, large, great #246
- Malay hebat great; profound; intense #199
- Malayalam വളരെ very, to a great extent or degree #23
- Norwegian stor large, big, great #267
- Polish świetnie very well, great, excellently #255
- Portuguese grande large; great; big #173
- Romanian mare big, large, great #122
- Russian здорово great, very well, awesomely #448
- Serbian sjajno great, magnificently, excellently #406
- Spanish gran apocopic form of grande; great, grand #192
- Swedish toppen #659
- Tamil பெரும் big, great, large, major #238
- Telugu పెద్ద great, big, large #86
- Turkish harika great, marvellous, fantastic, wonderful #112
- Urdu عظیم great, grand, vast, magnificent #285
- Vietnamese bạo to a great degree, like crazy, like mad #1,125
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.