How to say “work” 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 Chinese, where 工作 is the 21st most used word.
- Afrikaans werk #93
- Albanian punë work; labour; job #137
- Arabic عمل to work, perform #138
- Armenian գործ #283
- Basque lan work, task #87
- Bengali কাজ labor, effort, work #51
- Bosnian radiš to work #165
- Bulgarian работа #115
- Catalan feina work, job #218
- Chinese 工作 to work #21
- Croatian radiš to work #175
- Czech práci #218
- Danish arbejde #195
- Dutch werk to work, labour #178
- English rest Relief from work or activity by sleeping;… #446
- Esperanto laboro job, work #301
- Estonian töö #258
- Finnish töitä work, toil, effort, labour #406
- French travail work; labor #239
- Galician traballo to work #117
- Georgian მუშაობს to work #589
- German arbeiten to work #414
- Greek δουλειά employment, work, job #115
- Hindi काम work, task, labour #81
- Hungarian munka work, job #425
- Icelandic starf work, job #459
- Indonesian bekerja to work, to labor/labour #168
- Italian lavoro to work; to labor #149
- Korean 작업 work, working #1,011
- Latvian darbu work, job, business #253
- Lithuanian darbas work, job #248
- Macedonian работа work, labor #89
- Malay kerja work; occupation #191
- Malayalam പണി work; job; occupation #137
- Norwegian jobber job, work, employment #298
- Persian شغل job, work, employment, occupation #657
- Polish pracy #243
- Portuguese trabalho to work #161
- Romanian treaba #309
- Russian работа #365
- Serbian radiš to work #164
- Slovak prácu #219
- Slovenian delo work, labour #146
- Spanish trabajo to work #142
- Swedish göra work, task #61
- Tagalog trabaho work; job; labor #169
- Tamil வேலை job, work, occupation #52
- Telugu పని #56
- Turkish iş work, task, deed #139
- Ukrainian робота #453
- Urdu کام task, action, work #65
- Vietnamese việc job, work, business #74
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.