How to say “hell” 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 Hebrew, where לעזאזל is the 99th most used word.
- Albanian ferr hell, heck #752
- Armenian դժոխք #1,333
- Bengali নরক hell; naraka #1,333
- Bosnian pakao #1,163
- Bulgarian ад hell, inferno, perdition #2,262
- Catalan dimonis the hell, the devil, on earth; expletive used… #746
- Croatian pakao #1,083
- Czech pekla #1,822
- Danish fanden the hell, the devil #193
- Dutch hel hell, an infernal afterlife #962
- Esperanto infero #761
- Estonian põrgu #802
- Finnish hitto damn, heck, hell, rats or crap #452
- French putain fuck, fucking hell, bloody hell #340
- Galician inferno #1,345
- Georgian ჯანდაბა #200
- German hölle #657
- Greek κόλαση hell, inferno, a place of anguish and… #990
- Hebrew לעזאזל Damn!, Hell! #99
- Hindi नरक hell, underworld, purgatory #401
- Hungarian francba damn, hell #405
- Icelandic helvítis #315
- Indonesian persetan to hell with #770
- Korean 도대체 on earth; the hell #271
- Latvian ellē #609
- Lithuanian pragaras #1,521
- Macedonian пекол #1,607
- Malay neraka #563
- Malayalam നരകം #906
- Norwegian helvete Hell; a place of suffering for the damned #208
- Persian جهنم #588
- Portuguese inferno #965
- Romanian dracului Used as an intensifier or filler: the hell #755
- Russian ад hell, Hades #1,963
- Serbian pakao #1,153
- Slovak peklo #919
- Slovenian pekel #563
- Spanish demonios the hell, on earth #550
- Swedish helvete #239
- Tagalog impiyerno inferno; hell #784
- Tamil நரகம் #266
- Turkish cehennem hell, inferno #1,648
- Urdu جہنم #386
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.