How to say “letter” 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 Malay, where ya is the 26th most used word.
- Afrikaans brief #268
- Arabic رسالة #311
- Armenian թո the name of the Armenian letter թ #665
- Basque gutun #511
- Bengali চিঠি #559
- Bulgarian писмо letter, epistle #1,024
- Catalan carta letter, card #1,008
- Chinese 字母 #1,538
- Czech dopis #1,064
- Danish brev #1,321
- Dutch brief #1,023
- English san An Ancient Greek letter representing /s/,… #1,743
- Esperanto leteron #1,081
- Estonian b the letter b #1,367
- Finnish kirjeen #2,431
- French lettre #902
- Galician carta letter, correspondence #493
- Georgian წერილი #874
- German schreiben writing, letter #782
- Greek γράμμα #945
- Hebrew ל The third letter of a verb root; so called… #178
- Hindi डी the letter D #794
- Icelandic bréf #725
- Indonesian huruf #2,189
- Italian lettera #1,047
- Korean 문자 letter, character, alphabet #781
- Latvian vēstuli #1,378
- Lithuanian laiškas #1,354
- Macedonian писмо #1,017
- Malay ya The 29th letter of the Arabic alphabet #26
- Malayalam കത്ത് letter; a written or printed communication,… #347
- Norwegian brev a letter #1,175
- Persian حرف #54
- Polish list #1,140
- Portuguese carta #834
- Romanian scrisoare #1,227
- Russian эм The Cyrillic letter М, м #851
- Slovak list #568
- Slovenian pismo #419
- Spanish carta #819
- Swedish david The letter "D" in the Swedish spelling… #746
- Tamil கடிதம் letter, written communication #525
- Telugu లేఖ letter, epistle #500
- Turkish be Letter of the Arabic alphabet: ب #342
- Urdu خط letter, correspondence #813
- Vietnamese thư #437
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.