How to say “thousand” in 50 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 Basque, where mila is the 80th most used word.
- Afrikaans duisend #924
- Albanian mijë #625
- Arabic ألف #385
- Armenian հազար #351
- Basque mila a thousand #80
- Bengali হাজার #309
- Bosnian hiljada #1,271
- Bulgarian хиляда #2,173
- Catalan mil #693
- Chinese 一千 one thousand #1,707
- Croatian tisuća #1,126
- Czech tisíc #844
- Danish tusind #1,023
- Dutch duizenden a thousand #1,610
- English million The cardinal number 1 000 000: 10⁶; a… #636
- Esperanto mil #651
- Estonian tuhat one thousand #865
- Finnish tuhansia #2,371
- French mille thousand, one thousand, a thousand #1,407
- Galician mil one thousand; 1000 #610
- Georgian ათასი #561
- Greek χιλιάδες #865
- Hebrew אלף thousand, one thousand #555
- Hindi लाख one hundred thousand, lakh #761
- Hungarian ezer #839
- Icelandic þúsund #1,567
- Indonesian ribu #1,096
- Italian mille thousand, one thousand #863
- Korean 만 ten thousand #638
- Latvian tūkstoši #1,171
- Lithuanian tūkstantis #1,800
- Macedonian илјада #1,458
- Malay ribu #882
- Malayalam ആയിരം #494
- Norwegian tusen thousand; 1000 #513
- Persian هزار #405
- Polish tysięcy #1,034
- Portuguese mil one thousand; a thousand; 1000 #486
- Romanian mie #331
- Serbian hiljada #1,109
- Slovak tisíc #561
- Slovenian tisoč #385
- Spanish mil #708
- Swedish tusen #1,161
- Tagalog libo #516
- Tamil ஆயிரம் #432
- Telugu వెయ్యి #623
- Turkish bin #453
- Urdu ہزار #773
- Vietnamese man ten thousand; myriad #1,258
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.