How to say “shut” in 34 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 Hindi, where बंद is the 116th most used word.
- Afrikaans dig closed, shut, tight #1,662
- Albanian mbyllur to close, shut, seal #489
- Arabic أغلق to close, to shut #806
- Armenian փակ closed, shut; locked #1,223
- Bengali বন্ধ closed, shut #118
- Bosnian šuti to be silent, shut up #1,920
- Chinese 閉嘴 to stop talking; to shut up #1,477
- Croatian šuti to be silent, shut up #1,228
- Czech zavři to close, to shut #1,524
- Dutch zwijgen to be silent, to shut one's mouth #2,124
- Esperanto fermu to close, to shut #728
- Finnish kiinni closed, shut #189
- French ferme to shut #594
- Galician cala to shut up; to be silent #656
- Georgian მოკეტე shut up! #1,027
- German schließen to shut; to close; to shut down #1,421
- Greek σκάσε shut up, shut it, be quiet #716
- Hindi बंद closed, shut #116
- Italian chiuso to close, to shut #939
- Latvian ciet closed, shut, sometimes also metaphorically #828
- Lithuanian uždaryk to close, to shut #1,051
- Malay mematikan to turn off, to shut down, to disable #1,527
- Persian بستن to close, to shut #1,963
- Polish zamknij to close, to lock, to shut #464
- Portuguese cala to shut up #2,435
- Serbian ćuti to be silent, to shut up #1,454
- Slovak vypnúť to turn off, to shut down, to disable #1,094
- Slovenian zapreti to close, to shut #870
- Spanish cállate shut up! #689
- Swedish stäng to close, to shut #1,044
- Tagalog manahimik to remain silent; to shut up #646
- Tamil மூடு to shut, close #275
- Turkish kes shut up! #333
- Vietnamese đóng to shut tight #583
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.