How to say “happy” in 49 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 Persian, where خوش is the 145th most used word.
- Afrikaans gelukkig #155
- Albanian lumtur happy, joyous #278
- Arabic سعيد happy, cheerful, joyous #196
- Armenian ուրախ happy, glad, cheerful #251
- Basque zoriontsu #486
- Bengali আনন্দিত delighted, happy, glad, merry #860
- Bosnian sretan happy, merry #632
- Bulgarian радвам to please, to make happy #277
- Catalan feliç #534
- Chinese 舒服 comfortable; relaxed and happy; providing… #281
- Croatian sretan happy, merry #460
- Czech šťastný #898
- Danish glad happy, glad #303
- Dutch blij happy; momentarily. For generally in life,… #349
- English glad Pleased; happy; gratified #598
- Esperanto feliĉa full of well-being, happy #506
- Estonian õnnelik #476
- Finnish iloinen happy, merry, cheerful, joyful, joyous,… #787
- French heureux #531
- Galician feliz #405
- Georgian ბედნიერი #177
- German glücklich happy; both momentarily and generally in life #586
- Greek χαίρομαι to be happy, to be glad #385
- Hebrew שמח happy, glad, pleased #289
- Hungarian örülök to be happy or glad, to rejoice #299
- Icelandic feginn happy, pleased, relieved #1,198
- Indonesian senang #198
- Italian felice #381
- Korean 반갑다 to be glad, happy; pleasant; welcome #1,444
- Latvian jautri cheerful, merry, happy, cheerfully, merrily,… #628
- Lithuanian laimingas #600
- Macedonian среќен #305
- Malay bahagia happy and content #715
- Malayalam ഹാപ്പി #563
- Norwegian glad happy, glad #263
- Persian خوش #145
- Polish szczęśliwy #1,110
- Portuguese feliz #332
- Romanian fericit #548
- Serbian srećan #577
- Slovak šťastný #437
- Slovenian vesel happy, cheerful, glad #279
- Spanish feliz happy, merry #337
- Swedish glad happy, glad #398
- Tagalog masaya joyful; happy #281
- Turkish mutlu #268
- Ukrainian щасливий happy; lucky #1,379
- Urdu خوش #154
- Vietnamese mừng glad, happy #415
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.