How to say “half” in 50 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 Serbian, where po is the 106th most used word.
- Albanian gjysma a half, ¹⁄₂ #1,023
- Arabic نصف half, a half, semi-, hemi- #282
- Armenian կես #497
- Basque erdi #387
- Bengali আধ #2,042
- Bosnian po #108
- Bulgarian пол #830
- Catalan meitat #787
- Chinese 一半 one half; half #412
- Croatian po #113
- Czech půl #674
- Danish halv #868
- Dutch half half before the next whole #731
- Esperanto duono #891
- Estonian pooled #1,724
- Finnish puoli #709
- French moitié #870
- Galician metade a half #853
- Georgian ნახევარი #921
- German hälfte half; fifty percent of something #1,404
- Greek μισό half, ¹⁄₂ #579
- Hebrew חצי #437
- Hindi आधा #1,087
- Hungarian fél #424
- Icelandic hálfur #1,807
- Indonesian setengah #563
- Italian mezzo half, middle #548
- Korean 반 #584
- Latvian pusi #481
- Lithuanian pusė #602
- Macedonian половина #453
- Malay separuh #716
- Malayalam പകുതി #330
- Norwegian halv #1,013
- Persian نصف #672
- Polish pół #685
- Portuguese metade #916
- Romanian jumătate #562
- Russian половина #2,411
- Serbian po #106
- Slovak polovica #998
- Slovenian polovica #819
- Spanish medio half, incompletely #513
- Swedish hälften half, one of two roughly equal parts #1,321
- Tagalog kalahati #614
- Tamil அரை #413
- Turkish yarım #747
- Ukrainian половина #1,674
- Urdu آدھی #472
- Vietnamese buổi half a day #436
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.