How to say “listen” 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 Basque, where entzun is the 63rd most used word.
- Afrikaans luister to listen #173
- Arabic تسمع to give ear, to listen, to lend an ear #643
- Basque entzun to hear, listen #63
- Bengali শোনো to hear, to listen to #364
- Bosnian slušati to listen #1,379
- Bulgarian слушам to listen to #711
- Catalan escolta to listen to, to pay attention to #233
- Croatian slušati to listen #957
- Czech poslouchej to listen #472
- Danish lytter to listen #1,061
- Dutch luister to listen #246
- Esperanto aŭskultu to listen #197
- Estonian kuula to listen #314
- Finnish kuuntele to listen #363
- French écoute to listen #358
- Galician escoita to listen, to pay attention #471
- Georgian მოუსმინე to listen to something #857
- German zuhören to listen #2,301
- Hindi सुनो to listen, hear #261
- Hungarian hallgatni to listen to something #2,211
- Icelandic hlusta to listen #361
- Indonesian dengarkan to listen, to hear carefully #376
- Italian ascolta to listen to #452
- Latvian klausies to listen in #437
- Lithuanian klausyti to listen; to hear #1,514
- Macedonian слуша to listen, hear #912
- Malay dengar to hear; to listen #96
- Norwegian lytter to listen; to make an effort to hear or… #1,919
- Polish słuchaj to listen #326
- Portuguese escute to listen to; to hear #2,496
- Romanian asculta to listen #823
- Russian слушать to listen, to listen to #1,365
- Serbian slušati to listen #1,715
- Slovak počúvať to listen #573
- Slovenian poslušati to listen #536
- Spanish escucha to listen to, to hear out #389
- Swedish lyssna to listen #320
- Tagalog makinig to listen #207
- Tamil கேள் to listen to, hear #201
- Turkish dinle to listen, hear #235
- Ukrainian слухати to listen #1,371
- Urdu سننا to listen, to hear #946
- Vietnamese vâng to obey; to listen to; to comply with #189
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.