How to say “story” 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 Vietnamese, where chuyện is the 53rd most used word.
- Afrikaans storie #375
- Albanian tregim story, tale #1,623
- Arabic قصة story, tale, relation #322
- Basque ipuin story, tale #1,031
- Bengali গল্প #343
- Bosnian priča story, tale #402
- Catalan conte tale; story #2,033
- Chinese 故事 story; tale; narrative; plot #119
- Croatian priča story, tale #416
- Czech příběh #660
- Danish etage storey, story, floor #2,186
- Dutch verhalen #1,477
- English joke An amusing story #1,016
- Esperanto rakonto narration, narrative, story, tale #1,199
- Estonian lugu tale, story #400
- Finnish tarina story, tale #1,038
- French histoire #310
- Hebrew סיפור A story: a sequence of real or fictional… #465
- Hindi कहानी story, narrative #477
- Hungarian történet story, tale #1,146
- Icelandic sögu a story #534
- Indonesian cerita #416
- Italian vicenda affair, event, story #2,490
- Korean 소설 fictional literature; fictional story #1,236
- Latvian stāsts #684
- Macedonian приказна #384
- Malay cerita #381
- Malayalam കഥ #174
- Norwegian fortelle to recount, as a story #258
- Persian داستان tale, story #307
- Romanian povestea story, yarn, tale #692
- Serbian priča story, tale #365
- Slovak príbeh event, incident, story #347
- Slovenian zgodba #318
- Tagalog kuwento story; tale; narrative #1,304
- Tamil கதை story, anecdote, narrative #107
- Telugu కథ #211
- Turkish hikâye #1,828
- Urdu کہانی story, tale #197
- Vietnamese chuyện a story, a tale, or an anecdote #53
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.