How to say “yes” in 45 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 Macedonian, where да is the 1st most used word.
- Afrikaans ja #32
- Albanian po #9
- Arabic نعم #23
- Armenian հա #36
- Basque bai #6
- Bengali হ্যাঁ #44
- Bosnian jeste emphatic yes #160
- Catalan sí #26
- Chinese 喂 hello?; yes? #58
- Croatian jeste emphatic yes #162
- Czech ano #37
- Danish ja #35
- Dutch ja #44
- English yeah #62
- Esperanto jes #24
- Estonian jah yes, indeed #16
- Finnish joo yeah, yes #257
- French oui #54
- Georgian დიახ #80
- German doch yes; surely; really; on the contrary #68
- Greek ναι #26
- Hebrew כן #11
- Hindi हाँ #41
- Hungarian igenis but, yes #1,044
- Icelandic já #18
- Italian sì #54
- Korean 응 #67
- Lithuanian taip #7
- Macedonian да #1
- Malayalam അതെ #16
- Norwegian ja #33
- Persian ها yeah, yes #18
- Polish owszem certainly, yes, of course #1,253
- Russian да #14
- Serbian jeste emphatic yes #152
- Slovak áno #20
- Slovenian da #3
- Spanish sí yes, yeah #24
- Swedish ja #35
- Tagalog oo #31
- Tamil ஆமாம் yes, quite so, indeed #28
- Telugu అవును #15
- Turkish evet #12
- Urdu ہاں #36
- Vietnamese phải #19
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.