How to say “prison” in 42 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 Macedonian, where затвор is the 355th most used word.
- Afrikaans tronk #483
- Albanian burg jail, prison #455
- Armenian բանտ prison, jail #1,682
- Basque espetxe jail, gaol; prison #1,261
- Bengali কারাগার prison, jail #1,751
- Bosnian zatvor prison, jail #735
- Bulgarian затвор prison, jail #1,415
- Catalan presó #582
- Chinese 牢房 prison cell; jail cell #1,739
- Croatian zatvor prison, jail #756
- Czech vězení prison, jail #600
- Danish fængsel #652
- Dutch gevangenis a jail, a prison; especially an institution… #653
- English cops A police officer or prison guard #1,002
- Estonian vangla prison, jail #1,384
- Finnish vankilaan #1,089
- French prison #508
- Galician prisión #1,152
- German gefängnis prison, jail #776
- Greek φυλακή prison, jail, gaol #481
- Hebrew כלא prison, jail #1,508
- Hungarian börtönbe #1,291
- Icelandic fangelsi #464
- Indonesian penjara prison, jail #492
- Italian prigione jail, prison #688
- Korean 감옥 jail, prison #929
- Latvian cietumā #633
- Macedonian затвор prison, jail #355
- Malayalam തടവറ prison, jail #1,841
- Norwegian fengsel a prison #595
- Persian زندان jail, prison #385
- Portuguese prisão #581
- Romanian închisoare prison, jail #650
- Serbian zatvor prison, jail #768
- Slovenian zapor #406
- Spanish cárcel #878
- Swedish fängelse a prison, a jail #816
- Tagalog bilangguan prison; jail #696
- Tamil சிறை jail, prison, imprisonment #1,162
- Turkish hapishane #2,043
- Urdu قید jail, prison #917
- Vietnamese tù #564
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.