How to say “police” in 48 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 警察 is the 76th most used word.
- Afrikaans polisie #536
- Albanian polici #976
- Arabic شرطة #404
- Armenian ոստիկանություն #1,133
- Basque polizia #248
- Bengali পুলিশ #212
- Bosnian policija #489
- Bulgarian полицай police officer, policeman #708
- Catalan policia #250
- Chinese 警察 police; police force #76
- Croatian policija #504
- Czech policie #580
- Danish politiet #321
- Dutch politie #308
- English detective A police officer tasked with collecting… #893
- Esperanto polico police, constabulary #652
- Estonian politsei #462
- Finnish poliisi #409
- French flics police officer; copper; pig; rozzer #900
- Galician policía #282
- German polizei police; law enforcement #401
- Greek αστυνομία #373
- Hebrew משטרה #978
- Hindi पुलिस the police #266
- Hungarian rendőrség #572
- Icelandic lögreglan #503
- Indonesian polisi #210
- Italian polizia #319
- Korean 경찰 police; policing #406
- Latvian policija #719
- Lithuanian policija #422
- Macedonian полиција #411
- Malay polis The police, a civil force granted the legal… #200
- Malayalam പോലീസ് #131
- Norwegian politiet #307
- Persian پلیس #539
- Polish policja #632
- Portuguese polícia #259
- Russian полиция #650
- Serbian policija #514
- Slovak polícia #416
- Slovenian policija #280
- Swedish polisen #321
- Tagalog pulis police officer; policeman; policewoman #171
- Telugu పోలీసు #154
- Turkish polis #285
- Ukrainian поліція #729
- Urdu پولس #772
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.