How to say “nothing” in 40 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 Tagalog, where wala is the 34th most used word.
- Afrikaans niks #73
- Albanian asgjë #100
- Armenian ոչինչ #90
- Basque ezer anything, nothing #40
- Bosnian ništa #86
- Bulgarian нищо #72
- Catalan res nothing, not anything #53
- Chinese 而已 that's all; nothing more; is all #142
- Croatian ništa #79
- Czech nic #58
- Danish ingenting #374
- Dutch niets #108
- Esperanto nenion #145
- Finnish mitään anything, any; nothing, no #45
- French rien #77
- Galician nada #50
- Georgian არაფერი #114
- German nichts #75
- Greek τίποτα #73
- Hungarian semmi #65
- Icelandic neinn no one, nobody, nothing #519
- Italian niente #92
- Korean 괜히 for nothing #717
- Latvian neko #114
- Lithuanian veltui in vain, for nothing, wastefully #1,136
- Macedonian ништо #72
- Norwegian ingen no; no one; nobody; nothing #75
- Polish nic #50
- Portuguese nada #66
- Romanian taci to be silent, say nothing #511
- Russian нечего there is nothing #1,028
- Serbian ništa #82
- Slovak nič #47
- Slovenian nič #64
- Spanish nada nothing, zero, zilch, not...anything #58
- Swedish ingenting #271
- Tagalog wala nothing; to not exist; there is no #34
- Turkish sırf only, solely, nothing but #1,074
- Ukrainian нічого #80
- Vietnamese toàn nothing but #205
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.