How to say “happen” in 38 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 Vietnamese, where là is the 3rd most used word.
- Albanian lutem to long for something to happen; to wish #80
- Arabic حدث to happen, to take place #88
- Basque gertatu to happen, take place #107
- Bosnian desilo to happen, occur #283
- Catalan succeir to happen, occur #2,230
- Chinese 正是 to be precisely; to just happen to be; to be… #296
- Croatian dogoditi to happen #607
- Dutch gebeurd to happen #257
- English hope To want to happen, with a sense of… #339
- Esperanto okazas to happen, to occur #144
- Estonian toimub to happen, to take place, to come about #233
- Finnish tapahtui to happen, take place, occur, come about,… #192
- Galician ocorre to occur, happen #983
- Georgian მოხდა to happen #94
- German passiert to happen #199
- Greek συμβαίνει to happen, to occur, to take place #189
- Hebrew קרה To happen, occur, go on #122
- Hungarian történt to happen #105
- Icelandic gerast to happen, to go on, to take place #260
- Indonesian jangan expresses that something is forbidden or… #46
- Latvian notiek to happen #133
- Lithuanian atsitikti to happen, occur #1,909
- Malay berlaku to happen, to occur, to take place #128
- Malayalam സംഭവിക്കുക to happen #1,078
- Norwegian skjer to happen, occur #186
- Polish stało to happen #137
- Portuguese aconteceu to happen; to occur; to take place #213
- Romanian întâmplat to happen, occur #171
- Russian случиться to happen, to occur, to come about #1,801
- Serbian desilo to happen, occur #258
- Slovenian dogajati to happen #2,112
- Spanish sucede to happen, to befall, to occur #691
- Swedish hände to happen; chiefly what happens quickly or… #222
- Tagalog makita to happen to see; to be able to see #145
- Tamil பலி to happen, come true #904
- Turkish olmadı if not, if it doesn’t happen #489
- Ukrainian статися to happen, to occur #1,994
- Vietnamese là Used to indicate something is bound to happen… #3
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.