How to say “shit” 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 Lithuanian, where šūdas is the 166th most used word.
- Afrikaans stront shit, dung #1,051
- Albanian mut #589
- Bengali হাগু poop, shit #2,080
- Bosnian jebote fuck, holy shit, for fuck's sake #814
- Bulgarian лайно shit, turd, feces #2,064
- Catalan merda dung, excrement, shit #191
- Chinese 狗屎 dog faeces; dog shit #476
- Croatian jebote fuck, holy shit, for fuck's sake #966
- Czech hovno shit, turd #1,192
- Danish lort crap, shit #373
- Dutch shit shit, darn #900
- Esperanto fek crap!, shit!, damn it! #626
- Estonian pask crap, shit, faeces #755
- Finnish paska bullshit, crap, shit, nonsense #468
- French merde shit!, crap! #257
- Galician merda shit, dung, excrement #238
- German scheiße feces, shit #284
- Greek σκατά shit, crap, lousy #468
- Hebrew חרא crap, shit #368
- Hungarian szar #772
- Icelandic andskotinn shit! fuck! damn! #341
- Indonesian sialan fuck!, shit! #250
- Italian merda shit, crap #354
- Korean 씨발 fuck! shit! #379
- Latvian sūda #735
- Lithuanian šūdas #166
- Macedonian гомно shit, usually human #1,191
- Malayalam തീട്ടം excrement, feces, shit #1,196
- Persian گه #677
- Polish gówno shit, excrement #870
- Portuguese merda shit; faeces #232
- Russian дерьмо shit, crap #755
- Serbian jebote fuck, holy shit, for fuck's sake #859
- Slovak hovno shit, turd #567
- Slovenian drek #454
- Swedish skit #330
- Tagalog shet #1,043
- Turkish bok #837
- Ukrainian лайно #573
- Vietnamese cứt #1,396
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.