How to say “matter” in 38 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 Chinese, where 事情 is the 28th most used word.
- Afrikaans kwessie question, matter, issue #1,147
- Albanian nejse no matter, nevertheless #1,589
- Arabic مهما whatever, no matter what often followed by a… #252
- Armenian նյութ matter, substance; material, stuff #708
- Bulgarian материал material, matter, stuff #2,398
- Catalan importa to matter #317
- Chinese 事情 matter; affair; something; business; thing;… #28
- Czech vlastně actually, as a matter of fact #263
- Danish sagen matter, affair #486
- Dutch dingen matter, thing #219
- English gas Matter in an intermediate state between… #1,223
- Esperanto gravas to be important, to matter #216
- Finnish asia matter, issue, affair, concern, business,… #238
- French question issue, matter, topic, problem #308
- Galician asunto matter, issue #629
- German sache matter, affair, case, question, issue #318
- Greek υπόθεση business, matter, affair #445
- Hindi मामले matter, issue #560
- Hungarian baj trouble, matter, problem #147
- Icelandic reyndar in fact, as a matter of fact, actually #329
- Indonesian soal question, problem, matter, point #316
- Italian cose thing, matter #136
- Korean 이거 this thing, this matter #93
- Latvian patiesībā in truth, in fact, as a matter of fact #359
- Lithuanian reikalas business, affair, matter, issue #400
- Malay hal matter; affair; business #232
- Malayalam സംഗതി the thing, matter #595
- Persian بابت account, matter #517
- Polish sprawy issue, affair, matter, business, thing #376
- Romanian oricum anyhow, no matter how, in any way, however #413
- Russian дело affair, matter, concern #131
- Spanish importa to matter, to be important #228
- Tamil விஷயம் issue, matter, subject, topic, affair, deed,… #109
- Telugu వస్తువు a thing, article, matter, substance #475
- Turkish mesele #906
- Ukrainian неважливо does not matter, unimportant #1,820
- Urdu معاملہ matter, affair, issue #535
- Vietnamese cứ no matter what #134
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.