How to say “telephone” in 44 different 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.
- teléfono/teˈlefono/ Spanish
- телефон[tʲɪlʲɪˈfon] Russian
- 電話/ti̯ɛn⁵¹⁻⁵³ xu̯ä⁵¹/ Chinese
- 전화[t͡ɕʌ̹nwa̠] Korean
- τηλέφωνο/tiˈlefoˌno/ Greek
- টেলিফোন/ʈe.li.pʰon/ Bengali
“telephone” in Spanish: teléfono · French: téléphone · German: telefon · Italian: telefono · Portuguese: telefone · Chinese: 電話 · Korean: 전화 · Russian: телефон
It is commonest in Malay, where telefon is the 239th most used word.
Telephone in other languages, A to Z
- Afrikaans foon/fʊə̯n/ A telephone, a phone #720
- Albanian telefon/teleˈfon/ #472
- Basque telefono/teˈlefoˌno/ #654
- Bengali টেলিফোন/ʈe.li.pʰon/ #1,484
- Bosnian telefon/telěfoːn/ #549
- Bulgarian телефон[tɛlɛˈfɔn] #874
- Catalan telèfon[təˈlɛ.fun] #479
- Chinese 電話/ti̯ɛn⁵¹⁻⁵³ xu̯ä⁵¹/ telephone; phone #650
- Croatian telefon/telěfoːn/ #604
- Czech telefon[ˈtɛlɛfon] phone, telephone #634
- Danish ringer/ˈʁeŋɐ/ To call, to telephone #368
- Dutch telefoon/teː.ləˈfoːn/ #510
- Esperanto telefonis/teleˈfonis/ to telephone #788
- Estonian telefoni/ˈtelefoni/ #760
- Finnish puhelin/ˈpuhelin/ telephone, phone #1,422
- French téléphone/te.le.fɔn/ #442
- Galician teléfono/teˈlɛfɔnʊ/ telephone, phone #615
- Georgian ალო[äɫo̞] A greeting used when answering the telephone,… #758
- German telefon/ˈtɛləˌfoːn/ #622
- Greek τηλέφωνο/tiˈlefoˌno/ telephone, phone #432
- Hebrew הלו/halo/ A greeting used when answering the telephone #373
- Hungarian telefont[ˈtɛlɛfont] #1,376
- Icelandic síma[ˈsiːma] to telephone #991
- Indonesian telepon/teˈlepɔn/ #404
- Italian telefono/teˈlɛ.fo.no/ telephone, phone #490
- Korean 전화[t͡ɕʌ̹nwa̠] telephone, phone #270
- Latvian telefonu/ˈtelefoːnu/ #673
- Lithuanian telefonas[tʲɛlʲɛˈfɔnɐs] #684
- Macedonian телефон[tɛlɛˈfɔn] #438
- Malay telefon/teˈlifon/ #239
- Norwegian telefonen/tələˈfuːnn̩/ a telephone or phone #570
- Persian تلفن[t̪ʰe.le.fón] #384
- Polish telefon/tɛˈlɛ.fɔn/ #451
- Portuguese telefone/te.leˈfõ.ni/ to telephone #516
- Romanian telefon/ˌteleˈfon/ #427
- Russian телефон[tʲɪlʲɪˈfon] #595
- Serbian telefon/telěfoːn/ #584
- Slovak telefón/telefɔːn/ #391
- Spanish teléfono/teˈlefono/ #442
- Swedish telefon/tɛlɛˈfoːn/ a phone, a telephone #782
- Tagalog telepono/teˈlepono/ #326
- Turkish telefon/te.le.fon/ #469
- Ukrainian телефон[teɫeˈfɔn] #500
- Urdu فون/fuːn/ phone, telephone #143
The speaker reads the word in the voice the LangX app uses for that language — synthesised, not a recording of a native speaker, so treat it as a guide. A row without a button has no reading we are free to use, or none we trust, yet. Voices for Bengali (google (bn_BD), CC BY-SA 4.0), Catalan (upc_ona (ca_ES), CC BY-SA 4.0) and Estonian (news (et_EE), CC BY 4.0).
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.