How to say “woman” in 53 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 Chinese, where 女人 is the 47th most used word.
- Afrikaans vrou #124
- Albanian gruaja #331
- Arabic امرأة #324
- Armenian օրիորդ girl; unmarried woman; maid, maiden; damsel #98
- Basque emakume #172
- Bengali স্ত্রী woman, female #352
- Bosnian žena #220
- Bulgarian бременна pregnant woman #1,067
- Catalan noia girl, young woman #259
- Chinese 女人 woman; adult female #47
- Croatian žena #222
- Czech žena #350
- Danish kvinde A woman #327
- Dutch vrouw #159
- English wife A married woman, especially in relation to… #307
- Esperanto virino #319
- Estonian naine #244
- Finnish naisen #629
- French femme #158
- Galician muller #180
- Georgian ქალი #154
- German frau #151
- Greek γυναίκα #166
- Hebrew אישה #312
- Hindi महिला lady, female, woman #247
- Hungarian nő #252
- Icelandic kona a woman #308
- Indonesian wanita woman; lady #170
- Italian donna #267
- Korean 여자 #197
- Latvian sieviete #466
- Lithuanian mergina young woman, girl, lass #263
- Macedonian жена #148
- Malay wanita A female person; woman, lady #236
- Malayalam പെണ്ണ് #306
- Norwegian jente girl; young woman #398
- Persian زن #163
- Polish kobiety #514
- Portuguese mulher #185
- Romanian femeie #332
- Russian женщина #441
- Serbian žena #205
- Slovak žena #209
- Slovenian ženska female, woman #222
- Spanish mujer #194
- Swedish kvinna a woman #376
- Tagalog babae woman; girl; female #211
- Tamil லெஸ்பியன் lesbian; a homosexual woman #1,066
- Telugu మహిళ #125
- Turkish kadın #227
- Ukrainian жінка #403
- Urdu عورت #246
- Vietnamese cổ she/her, that young adult woman #290
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.