How to say “red” in 49 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 Georgian, where წითელი is the 384th most used word.
- Afrikaans rooi #431
- Albanian kuq #906
- Arabic أحمر #1,112
- Basque gorri #704
- Bengali লাল #507
- Bosnian crvena #1,763
- Bulgarian червено in red #1,612
- Catalan vermell red, vermilion #1,408
- Croatian crvena #1,952
- Czech červený #2,399
- Danish rød #1,457
- Dutch rode #1,049
- English chicken A domesticated subspecies of red junglefowl #1,204
- Esperanto ruĝa #766
- Estonian punane #920
- Finnish punainen #1,828
- French rouge #801
- Galician vermello #886
- Georgian წითელი #384
- German rot #1,831
- Greek κόκκινο #1,129
- Hebrew אדום #885
- Hindi लाल #828
- Hungarian vörös #1,077
- Icelandic rautt #1,436
- Indonesian merah #614
- Italian rosso #1,309
- Korean 놀 glow, red sky #1,402
- Latvian sarkanā #1,759
- Lithuanian raudona #1,098
- Macedonian црвено in red #1,396
- Malay merah #566
- Malayalam റെഡ് #552
- Norwegian røde #1,277
- Persian سرخ scarlet, red color #1,113
- Polish czerwony #2,472
- Portuguese vermelho #1,345
- Russian красный #2,188
- Serbian crvena #1,949
- Slovak červená #1,151
- Slovenian rdeč #1,344
- Spanish rojo #1,280
- Swedish röda #1,294
- Tamil சிவப்பு red, ruddiness #539
- Telugu ఎరుపు red, redness #454
- Turkish alın blood red #663
- Ukrainian червоний #2,025
- Urdu سرخ #544
- Vietnamese đỏ #820
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.