How to say “heavy” in 40 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 Catalan, where greu is the 260th most used word.
- Afrikaans lig light; not heavy #306
- Albanian rëndë #737
- Arabic ثقيل #2,115
- Armenian ծանր #333
- Bengali ভারী #949
- Bosnian težak heavy, weighty #1,208
- Bulgarian тежък heavy, weighty, ponderous, elephantine #1,995
- Catalan greu heavy, weighty #260
- Chinese 沉重 #2,129
- Croatian težak heavy, weighty #1,183
- Czech těžký #1,247
- Dutch zwaar heavy, hefty #930
- English lead A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element,… #826
- Esperanto peza heavy, onerous, weighty #1,870
- Estonian raske #317
- French lourd #2,493
- Galician vese to plough, especially with a heavy plough #2,310
- German schwer heavy, weighty #480
- Hindi भारी #744
- Hungarian súlyos #1,645
- Icelandic kafi heavy smoke or fog #1,746
- Indonesian berat #612
- Italian pesante #2,141
- Latvian smagi heavy, severe, difficult, heavily, severely,… #1,047
- Lithuanian sunkus #886
- Macedonian тежок heavy, weighty, ponderous, elephantine #1,029
- Malay lori A lorry; a heavy truck #1,227
- Malayalam കനത്ത #1,186
- Norwegian tungt #2,114
- Polish ciężkie #2,205
- Romanian greu #318
- Serbian težak heavy, weighty #1,095
- Slovak ťažký #1,037
- Slovenian težek #1,301
- Tagalog mabigat #1,228
- Tamil கனமான #1,573
- Turkish ağır #746
- Ukrainian важкий #2,130
- Urdu بھاری #983
- Vietnamese nặng #844
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.