How to say “shoe” in 35 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 Afrikaans, where klomp is the 413th most used word.
- Afrikaans klomp Wooden shoe, clog #413
- Albanian këpucët #1,235
- Basque zapata #870
- Bengali জুতো #1,436
- Bosnian cipela #2,338
- Catalan sabates #1,980
- Chinese 鞋子 shoe; footwear #784
- Danish sko #1,028
- Dutch schoenen #1,033
- Esperanto ŝuoj #1,536
- Estonian kingi #1,442
- Finnish kengät #2,268
- French chaussures #1,302
- Galician zapatos #1,318
- German schuhe #1,327
- Greek παπούτσια #1,051
- Hebrew נעל #2,089
- Hindi जूते #1,352
- Indonesian sepatu #884
- Italian scarpe #1,156
- Macedonian чевли #1,297
- Malay kasut #751
- Norwegian sko a shoe #1,524
- Persian کفش a shoe #1,032
- Polish buty #1,335
- Portuguese sapatos #1,313
- Romanian pantofi #1,681
- Slovak topánky #644
- Slovenian čevelj #1,078
- Spanish zapatos #1,180
- Swedish skor a shoe #1,436
- Tagalog sapatos #825
- Tamil காலணி shoe, slipper #1,027
- Turkish ayakkabı #1,712
- Urdu جوتا #524
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.