Learning a few words of the local language can go a long way, even if it’s just as basic as “hello”, locals will be touched that you made the effort.
Most destinations from Albania to Zimbabwe will recognise the universal “hello”, or a similar variant such as “halo” or “hallo”. This is a quick guide to saying hello in 30 of the most common languages;
Albanian – Përshëndetje
Bengali – Hyālō
Chinese, Mandarin – Nǐ hǎo (pronounced as knee-how)
Czech – Ahoj
Danish – Hej
Dutch – Hallo
Esperanto – Saluton
Estonian – Tere
Filipino – Kumusta
French – Bonjour
German – Hallo
Hungarian – Szia
Hindi – Namastē
Icelandic – Halló
Indonesian – Halo
Irish – Dia duit
Italian – Ciao
Japanese – Konnichiwa (moshi moshi is used when answering the phone)
Latvian and Lithuanian – Sveiki
Maltese – Bonjour
Malaysia – Helo
Polish – Cześć
Portuguese – Olá
Romanian – Alo
Russian – Zdravstvuj (zdrah-stvooy)
Spanish – Hola
Swedish – Hallå
Thai – Sawadee
Turkish – Merhaba
Vietnamese – Chào
Top 3 Languages in the World
And whilst we’re on the subject on language, did you know that Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world by far? More than 15% of the global population (that’s about 955 million people) speak Mandarin. Around 410 million people speak Spanish in the USA, Spain and pockets of South American, making it the second most widely spoken language. And as for English, it sits in third spot with about 360 million using English as their primary language.
Language Fact
Do you know anyone that speaks Esperanto? It was devised in the late 1800s as a universal language, free of political ties. It was adopted as a second language in about 100 countries across the world and was recognised by UNESCO in 1954. Speakers are spread across Europe, South America and Eastern Asia, with no clear figures on exactly how many Esperanto speakers there are in the world.
