How to say “question” in 51 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 Turkish, where mi is the 6th most used word.
- Afrikaans vraag #491
- Albanian pyetje #292
- Arabic سؤال #418
- Armenian հարցեր #1,698
- Bengali প্রশ্ন #265
- Bosnian pitanje #392
- Bulgarian ли yes-no question particle #12
- Catalan preguntes #656
- Chinese 問題 question; query #299
- Croatian pitanje #393
- Czech otázka #847
- Danish spørgsmål #349
- Dutch vragen question, query #251
- English can OK; used at the end of a question when… #34
- Esperanto ĉu introduces a yes-no question #7
- Estonian kas Used to introduce a yes-or-no question #11
- Finnish kyse question, discussion #288
- French hé Used as a tag question, to emphasise what… #258
- Galician cuestión #625
- Georgian კითხვა #864
- German ob Introduces an indirect question, a doubt. if,… #192
- Greek πρόβλημα problem, complicated question or subject #212
- Hebrew שאלה #446
- Hindi सवाल #405
- Hungarian kérdés #590
- Icelandic spurning #610
- Indonesian soal question, problem, matter, point #316
- Italian domanda #528
- Korean 본 this, the item in question #170
- Latvian jautājums question; inquiry #495
- Lithuanian klausimas #429
- Macedonian прашање #349
- Malay adakah Question pronoun used to inquire about the… #84
- Malayalam ചോദ്യം #185
- Norwegian spørsmål a question #401
- Persian مسئله problem, question #520
- Polish prawda used as a question tag asking for agreement;… #100
- Portuguese questão #667
- Romanian întrebare #712
- Russian вопрос #348
- Serbian pitanje #391
- Slovak otázka #476
- Slovenian vprašanje #249
- Spanish preguntas #625
- Swedish fråga a question #251
- Tagalog tanong #378
- Telugu ప్రశ్న question, query, demand, inquiry #243
- Turkish mi question particle #6
- Ukrainian чи interrogative particle: introduces a question #61
- Urdu سوال #282
- Vietnamese à Question particle #80
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.