How to say “little” in 52 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 Korean, where 좀 is the 10th most used word.
- Afrikaans bietjie a little; a bit; fairly #113
- Albanian vogël small, little #179
- Arabic قليلا a little #248
- Armenian քիչ #150
- Basque txiki small, little #267
- Bengali একটু a bit, a little #81
- Bosnian malo little, few, some #81
- Bulgarian малко few, little #84
- Catalan petit small, little #362
- Chinese 一些 slightly; a little; somewhat #46
- Croatian malo little, few, some #84
- Czech trochu a bit; a little #126
- Danish noget a little, a bit, somewhat #40
- Dutch beetje a bit, a little bit, somewhat #260
- English close So as to leave or create little distance or… #424
- Esperanto iomete slightly, a little #306
- Estonian veidi slightly, a little #398
- Finnish hieman a little, bit, tad, slightly #359
- French peu little; not very much/many #115
- Galician pouco a little of something; not enough #153
- Georgian პატარა little, small #89
- German kleine small, little, wee #374
- Greek λίγο a little #112
- Hebrew קצת A little, a bit, a little bit #96
- Hindi छोटे little, small #298
- Hungarian kis small, little #74
- Icelandic svolítið a little, kind of #1,266
- Indonesian sedikit a little #158
- Italian poco little, not much #492
- Korean 좀 contraction of 조금: a little, somewhat, quite,… #10
- Latvian nedaudz a little #278
- Lithuanian mažas little, small #403
- Macedonian малку a little, some #81
- Malay sedikit a little, a few #195
- Malayalam ഇത്തിരി little, few #372
- Norwegian litt a bit, a little #92
- Persian کم few, little #148
- Polish mały small, little #465
- Portuguese pouco little of something #170
- Romanian câteva some, a little, a few #224
- Russian немного a little, some #166
- Serbian malo little, few, some #79
- Slovak malý little, small #286
- Spanish poco little, not much #133
- Swedish lite a little, to a small extent; somewhat #88
- Tagalog medyo rather; somewhat; a little bit; kind of #214
- Tamil சிறிய small, little, minor #96
- Telugu చిన్న small, little #90
- Turkish biraz a bit, a little #52
- Ukrainian трохи a little #163
- Urdu تھوڑا some, a little; small #192
- Vietnamese bé you, little child #186
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.