How to say “late” in 44 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 Swedish, where sen is the 100th most used word.
- Afrikaans verpas to miss, to be too late for #1,730
- Albanian vonë #194
- Arabic متأخر #606
- Armenian ուշ #218
- Bosnian kasno #731
- Bulgarian късно #443
- Catalan tard #310
- Chinese 最近 recently; lately; of late #153
- Croatian kasno #791
- Czech pozdě #479
- Danish sent #385
- English till Until; to, up to; as late as #624
- Esperanto malfrue #474
- Estonian hilja #586
- Finnish myöhemmin #315
- French tard #273
- Galician tarde late, later #204
- Georgian გვიანი #552
- German spät #432
- Hebrew מאוחר late, belated #295
- Hungarian később late, too late #304
- Icelandic seinn late, tardy #694
- Indonesian telat late, not arriving until after an expected… #1,921
- Italian tardi #441
- Korean 고 the late, deceased #715
- Latvian vēlos #464
- Lithuanian vėliau #249
- Macedonian доцна #721
- Malay terlambat too late; already late; delayed #629
- Malayalam ലേറ്റ് #1,988
- Norwegian senere #366
- Persian دیر #1,025
- Polish późno #701
- Portuguese tarde #281
- Romanian târziu #270
- Russian поздно #611
- Serbian kasno #698
- Slovenian pozno #467
- Spanish tarde #242
- Swedish sen #100
- Tamil லேட் #1,068
- Turkish geç #267
- Ukrainian пізно #758
- Vietnamese muộn late; tardy #926
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.