How to say “milk” in 45 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 Tamil, where பால் is the 326th most used word.
- Afrikaans melk #492
- Albanian qumësht very, as milk #1,490
- Arabic حليب #2,127
- Basque esne #1,157
- Bengali সর top layer of milk; cream or yogurt #864
- Bulgarian мляко #1,435
- Catalan llet #1,601
- Chinese 牛奶 cow's milk #814
- Croatian mlijeko #1,940
- Czech mléko #2,355
- Danish mælk #2,061
- Dutch melk #1,751
- Esperanto lakton #1,585
- Estonian piima #1,457
- French lait #1,518
- Galician leite #1,116
- Georgian რძე #928
- German milch #1,915
- Greek γάλα #1,459
- Hebrew חלב #1,254
- Hindi दूध #1,880
- Hungarian fejem to milk #1,662
- Indonesian susu #1,438
- Italian latte #1,663
- Korean 우유 cow's milk #1,430
- Latvian pienu #2,458
- Lithuanian pienas #2,363
- Macedonian млеко #1,215
- Malay o with sugar and no milk added #889
- Malayalam പാൽ #1,587
- Norwegian melk #2,099
- Portuguese leite #1,673
- Romanian lapte #1,523
- Serbian mleko #1,889
- Slovak mlieko #1,021
- Slovenian mleko #761
- Spanish leche #1,451
- Swedish mjölk #2,177
- Tagalog gatas #1,528
- Tamil பால் milk, dairy #326
- Telugu పాలు #1,173
- Turkish süt #1,483
- Ukrainian молоко #2,035
- Urdu دودھ #616
- Vietnamese sữa #1,423
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.