How to say “hero” in 42 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 Chinese, where 英雄 is the 353rd most used word.
- Arabic بطل #801
- Basque heroi #898
- Bengali বীর #1,328
- Bosnian heroj #1,330
- Bulgarian герой #954
- Catalan heroi #1,023
- Chinese 英雄 #353
- Croatian heroj #1,659
- Czech hrdina #1,551
- Dutch held #1,163
- Esperanto heroo #1,231
- Estonian kangelane #992
- Finnish sankari hero, heroine #1,850
- French héros #1,076
- Galician heroe #1,422
- German held #1,676
- Greek ήρωας #1,529
- Hindi नायक #1,375
- Hungarian hős #1,736
- Icelandic hetja #898
- Indonesian pahlawan hero, patriot, a strong and brave warrior #718
- Italian eroe #1,469
- Korean 영웅 #1,179
- Latvian varonis #1,021
- Lithuanian didvyris #896
- Macedonian херој brave man, hero #707
- Malay pahlawan hero, patriot, a strong and brave warrior #743
- Persian قهرمان champion; hero #575
- Polish bohaterem #2,464
- Portuguese herói #1,369
- Romanian erou #1,415
- Russian герой #2,011
- Serbian heroj #1,351
- Slovak hrdina #743
- Slovenian junak #574
- Spanish héroe #1,465
- Swedish hjälte a hero, a person of great bravery #1,256
- Tagalog bayani #1,671
- Tamil நாயகன் hero of a poem or story #482
- Turkish kahraman #1,156
- Ukrainian герой #1,369
- Urdu بیر hero, warrior, ghazi #1,514
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.