How to say “important” in 46 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 Turkish, where önemli is the 156th most used word.
- Afrikaans belangrik #465
- Albanian rëndësishëm #956
- Arabic مهم #399
- Armenian կարևոր important; serious; significant #299
- Basque garrantzitsu #889
- Bengali গুরুত্বপূর্ণ important, necessary, essential #361
- Bosnian važan #1,462
- Bulgarian важен important, of importance, momentous, crucial,… #1,408
- Catalan importants #1,797
- Chinese 主要 most important; principal; main; major;… #501
- Croatian važan #1,299
- Czech důležitý #1,506
- Danish vigtigt #548
- Dutch belangrijk #528
- Esperanto gravas to be important, to matter #216
- Estonian tähtis #452
- Finnish tärkeää important, very relevant #649
- French grand-chose a big deal; something or someone important #2,321
- Galician importante #359
- Georgian მნიშვნელოვანი #608
- German wichtig important, relevant, significant, weighty #545
- Greek σημαντικό important, significant, considerable,… #504
- Hebrew חשוב #287
- Hungarian fontos #324
- Icelandic mikilvægur important, imperative #1,649
- Indonesian penting important; primary #282
- Italian importante #410
- Korean 큰일 important affair #1,131
- Latvian svarīgi important, importantly; adverbial form of… #435
- Lithuanian svarbus #820
- Macedonian важен #990
- Malayalam പ്രധാന important, foremost #282
- Norwegian viktig #394
- Persian مهم important task, important affair #185
- Polish ważne #535
- Portuguese importante #372
- Romanian important #437
- Serbian važan #1,299
- Slovak dôležitý #974
- Slovenian pomemben #502
- Spanish importa to matter, to be important #228
- Swedish viktig #1,251
- Tagalog importante #607
- Tamil முக்கியம் that which is primary, principle or important #776
- Turkish önemli #156
- Vietnamese chôm to steal, usually something that is not very… #2,256
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.