How to say “mistake” in 41 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 Telugu, where తప్పు is the 89th most used word.
- Afrikaans fouteer to err, to make a mistake #2,424
- Albanian gabim mistake, error, fault #337
- Arabic خطأ mistakenly, by mistake #277
- Armenian սխալ mistake, error #1,501
- Bengali কাণ্ড sin, horrible mistake, incident, event #2,087
- Bulgarian грешка mistake, error #515
- Catalan equivocat to mistake, be wrong about, make a mistake #991
- Chinese 錯誤 mistake; error #2,392
- Dutch fout error, mistake #515
- Esperanto eraro error, mistake #1,329
- Estonian viga mistake, error, fault #236
- Finnish virhe mistake, blunder, error #1,622
- French faute error, mistake #524
- Georgian შეცდომა error, lapse, mistake, slip-up #655
- German fehler fault, error, mistake #632
- Greek λάθος error, mistake #198
- Hebrew טעות error, mistake #506
- Hindi भूल mistake, error, blunder, oversight #305
- Hungarian hiba mistake, error, fault #1,298
- Icelandic mistök #390
- Indonesian bersalah to make a mistake #574
- Italian errore mistake, error, slip, howler, blunder, goof #889
- Korean 미스 mistake, error #727
- Latvian kļūda error, mistake #1,122
- Lithuanian klaida error, mistake #690
- Macedonian грешка mistake, error #396
- Malay bersalah to make a mistake #574
- Malayalam അബദ്ധം #1,426
- Norwegian tabbe a blunder, mistake #2,267
- Persian اشتباه mistake, fault, error #211
- Polish błąd error, mistake #845
- Portuguese erro error; mistake #785
- Russian ошибка mistake, error, fault #1,442
- Slovenian napaka mistake, error #426
- Swedish misstag a mistake #623
- Tamil தப்பு error, mistake #608
- Telugu తప్పు an error, fault, mistake, offence #89
- Turkish yanlış error, mistake #253
- Ukrainian помилка mistake, error, blunder #1,399
- Urdu غلطی #227
- Vietnamese lỗi mistake, fault, error #121
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.