How to say “ten” in 52 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 Polish, where kilka is the 217th most used word.
- Afrikaans tien #757
- Albanian dhjetë #612
- Arabic عشرة #408
- Armenian տասը #923
- Basque hamar #368
- Bengali দশ #517
- Bosnian deset #609
- Bulgarian десет #741
- Catalan deu #270
- Chinese 十年 ten years; decade #669
- Croatian deset #611
- Czech deset #669
- Danish ti #405
- Dutch tien #478
- English dick Ten, in Cumbrian sheep counting #1,384
- Esperanto dek #338
- Estonian kümme #703
- Finnish kymmenen #817
- French dix #736
- Galician dez #431
- Georgian ათი #1,045
- German zehn #635
- Greek δέκα #668
- Hebrew עשרה #779
- Hindi दस #607
- Hungarian tíz #697
- Icelandic tíu #279
- Indonesian sepuluh #910
- Italian dieci #702
- Korean 열 #452
- Latvian desmit #620
- Lithuanian dešimt #548
- Macedonian десет #634
- Malay sepuluh #837
- Malayalam പത്ത് #322
- Norwegian ti #377
- Persian ده #299
- Polish kilka more than two but less than ten; several; few #217
- Portuguese dez #643
- Romanian zece #691
- Russian десять #925
- Serbian deset #602
- Slovak desať #500
- Slovenian deset #308
- Spanish diez #589
- Swedish tio #425
- Tagalog sampu #974
- Tamil பத்து #421
- Turkish on #415
- Ukrainian десять #599
- Urdu دس #413
- Vietnamese mười #1,241
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.