How to say “suddenly” 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 Chinese, where 突然 is the 179th most used word.
- Afrikaans skielik #562
- Arabic فجأة suddenly, unexpectedly, inadvertently,… #588
- Armenian հանկարծ #447
- Bengali হঠাৎ suddenly, all of a sudden #583
- Bosnian odjednom suddenly, unexpectedly, at once #927
- Bulgarian изведнъж #989
- Chinese 突然 suddenly; abruptly #179
- Croatian odjednom suddenly, unexpectedly, at once #932
- Danish pludselig suddenly, all of a sudden #880
- Dutch ineens #1,297
- English grab To grip suddenly; to seize; to clutch #1,064
- Esperanto subite #856
- Estonian äkki #257
- Finnish yhtäkkiä suddenly, abruptly, all of a sudden #1,342
- French soudain suddenly, all of a sudden #2,498
- German plötzlich suddenly, abruptly #903
- Greek ξαφνικά suddenly, all of a sudden #829
- Hebrew פתאום suddenly, all of a sudden, of a sudden #810
- Hindi अचानक #840
- Hungarian hirtelen suddenly, all of a sudden #750
- Icelandic skyndilega #867
- Indonesian tiba-tiba #771
- Korean 갑자기 suddenly, all of a sudden #273
- Latvian pēkšņi suddenly, abruptly; adverbial form of pēkšņs #813
- Lithuanian staiga #580
- Macedonian одеднаш #840
- Malay terfikir to suddenly think of; to come to mind #967
- Norwegian plutselig #846
- Persian ناگهان #2,159
- Polish nagle #821
- Russian вдруг suddenly, all of a sudden #734
- Serbian odjednom suddenly, unexpectedly, at once #888
- Slovenian naenkrat #528
- Swedish plötsligt suddenly; without forewarning #915
- Tagalog bigla suddenly; abruptly #853
- Telugu అకస్మాత్తుగా suddenly - in a sudden manner #756
- Turkish aniden #1,302
- Ukrainian раптом #923
- Urdu اچانک suddenly, all of a sudden #536
- Vietnamese đột suddenly; abruptly; promptly; unexpectedly #856
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.