How to say “true” in 41 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 Indonesian, where benar is the 74th most used word.
- Albanian vërtetë true, real #96
- Arabic حق to be true, to be confirmed #285
- Armenian իսկական real, true, genuine, authentic #928
- Basque egia #83
- Bengali সত্যি true, genuine #166
- Bosnian pravu pure, true, genuine #239
- Catalan crec to take as true #112
- Chinese 青蛙 frog, especially true frogs #2,098
- Croatian pravu pure, true, genuine #263
- Danish sandt #357
- Dutch echte authentic, true, genuine, real #426
- English believe To accept as true, particularly without… #201
- Esperanto vera #270
- Finnish kunnon proper, real, true, decent #839
- French vrai true; truly #157
- Galician verdadeiro true; authentic #986
- Georgian მართალი true, correct #208
- German wahr true, real #334
- Greek αληθινό true, real #981
- Hebrew אמיתי real, true, actual #391
- Hindi वास्तव true, real, genuine, actual, factual, ],… #186
- Hungarian igaz #83
- Icelandic satt true, not a lie, authentic #131
- Indonesian benar #74
- Italian vero #109
- Korean 옳아 yes, true, right #2,246
- Latvian īsts real, true, genuine, not false or artificial #606
- Lithuanian tikras correct, true #192
- Malay sejati real; true #1,112
- Norwegian sant true, real, genuine #157
- Polish prawdziwe #963
- Portuguese real true, real #761
- Romanian adevărat #236
- Serbian pravu pure, true, genuine #232
- Slovenian držati to be true #696
- Spanish real true friend, best friend #606
- Swedish sant true; according to the truth #325
- Tagalog real true; real; genuine #2,338
- Tamil பலி to happen, come true #904
- Urdu بلے yes, true, right #1,253
- Vietnamese thực true, real #207
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.