How to say “three” 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 Basque, where hiru is the 129th most used word.
- Afrikaans drie #250
- Albanian tre #187
- Arabic ثلاثة #179
- Armenian երեք #166
- Basque hiru #129
- Bengali তিন #260
- Bosnian tri #194
- Bulgarian три #215
- Catalan tres #212
- Croatian tri #198
- Czech tři #233
- Danish tre #179
- Dutch drie #215
- English tree Pronunciation spelling of three #1,057
- Esperanto tri #184
- Estonian kolm #253
- Finnish kolme #206
- French trois #231
- Galician tres #179
- Georgian სამი #355
- German drei #254
- Greek τρεις three, 3 #415
- Hebrew שלושה #381
- Hindi तीन #260
- Hungarian három #223
- Icelandic þrjú #1,459
- Indonesian tiga #252
- Italian tre #232
- Korean 세 #272
- Latvian trīs #170
- Lithuanian trys #252
- Macedonian три #177
- Malay tiga #242
- Malayalam മൂന്ന് #130
- Norwegian tre #163
- Persian سه #136
- Polish trzy #267
- Portuguese três #215
- Romanian trei #204
- Russian три #249
- Serbian tri #194
- Slovak tri #206
- Slovenian tri #149
- Spanish tres #201
- Swedish tre #171
- Tagalog tatlo #543
- Tamil மூன்று #130
- Telugu ముగ్గురు three persons #1,016
- Turkish üç #187
- Ukrainian три #169
- Urdu تین #160
- Vietnamese ba #307
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.