How to Say Thank You in 50 Languages

While Thanksgiving isn't until the end of the year in the United States and Canada, it's a great time to start learning how to say "thank you" in as many languages as possible!

If you wanted to say thank you to everyone on the planet, you'd probably need to learn around 7,000 languages. Fortunately, however, there's a better way to thank to as many people in the world as possible. By learning how to say "thank you" in the world's 50 most spoken languages, you would be able to say thanks to approximately 80% of the world's population. That's right, you could thank nearly 5.7 billion native speakers people!

Before we take a look at how to say thank you in some of the world's most spoken languages, it's important to clarify that discovering exactly which languages are the most spoken is no easy task. Despite all of the information available, no sources seem to agree upon the total number of speakers since this information isn't readily available for many languages. Many sources offer information about the total number of native speakers by country, and don't take into account non-native language learners.

That's why I opted for the information provided by SIL International's Ethnologue, an online publication  dedicated to researching the world's languages. The information included the approximate number of native speakers, and, as always, is an educated estimate. Are you ready to learn how to say thank you in the 50 most spoken languages in the world? Let's take a trip around the world and learn how to thank 80% of the world's population:

1. Mandarin Chinese - China - 1.3 billion native speakers 2. Spanish - Mexico, South America, Spain (31 total) - 427 million native speakers 3. English - North America, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand (106 total) - 339 million native speakers 4. Arabic - Saudi Arabia, Egypt (58 total) - 267 million native speakers 5. Hindi - India - 260 million native speakers     6. Portuguese - Brazil, Portugal (12 total) - 202 million native speakers 7. Bengali - Bangladesh - 189 million native speakers 8. Russian - Russian Federation (17 total) - 171 million native speakers 9. Japanese - Japan - 128 million native speakers 10. Lahnda/Punjabi - Pakistan, India - 117 million native speakers 11. Javanese - Indonesia - 85 million native speakers 12. Korean - South Korea, North Korea - 77 million native speakers 13. Wu Chinese (Shanghainese) - China - 77 million native speakers 14. German - Germany, Austria, Switzerland, (26 total) - 77 million native speakers 15. French - Europe, Africa, Caribbean, Canada (53 total) - 76 million native speakers 16. Telugu - India - 74  million native speakers 17. Marathi - India - 72 million native speakers 18. Turkish - Turkey (8 total) - 71 million native speakers 19. Urdu - Pakistan, India - 69 million native speakers 20. Vietnamese - Vietnam - 68 million native speakers 21. Tamil - India (7 total) - 68 million native speakers 22. Cantonese Chinese - China - 66 million native speakers 23. Italian - Italy (13 total) - 63 million native speakers 24. Persian (Farsi) - Afghanistan, Iran (6 total) - 61 million native speakers 25. Malay - Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand (16 total) - 61 million native speakers 26. Thai - Thailand - 60 million native speakers 27. Min Nan Chinese (Taiwanese) - China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines (7 total) - 49 million native speakers 28. Polish - Poland - 46 million native speakers 29. Gujarati - India, Pakistan, Uganda, Zimbabwe (8 total) - 46 million native speakers     30. Burmese - Myanmar - 42 million native speakers 31. Ukrainian - Ukraine - 39 million native speakers 32. Malayalam - India - 34 million native speakers 33. Hakka Chinese - China, Indonesia, Malaysia (9 total) - 34 million native speakers 34. Kannada - India - 34 million native speakers 35. Oromo - Ethiopia, Kenya - 34 million native speakers 36. Oriya (Odia) - India - 31 million native speakers 37. Pashto - Afghanistan, Pakistan, India - 31 million native speakers 38. Berber - Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Nigeria - 31 million native speakers 39. Kurdish - Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria    30 million native speakers 40. Amharic - Ethiopia and Israel - 28 million native speakers 41. Sundanese/Basa Sunda Indonesian - Indonesia - 27 million native speakers 42. Nepali - Nepal, India, Bhutan - 26 million native speakers 43. Romanian - Romania, Moldova (7 total) - 26 million native speakers 44. Bhojpuri - India, Mauritius, Nepal - 25 million native speakers 45. Tagalog - The Phillippines - 25 million native speakers 46. Azerbaijani - Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey - 24 million native speakers 47. Maithili - India, Nepal - 24 million native speakers 48. Hausa - Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan (8 total) - 24 million native speakers 49. Yoruba - Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone - 23 million native speakers 50. Serbo-Croatian - Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia (7 total) - 21 million native speakers No Easy Thanks A quick scan through all of the different ways to say "thank you" reveals that a simple greeting is often more complicated than we English speakers imagine. Whether or not the greeting is formal or informal, masculine or feminine, and even the age or religion of the speakers involved can play a role in determining which greeting to use.

Languages reflect cultures and history, and we English speakers are a relatively informal, straightforward group of people. In many cultures, language reflects complex social hierarchies, norms and gender roles, and the best way to learn these languages is to respect and embrace these rules. It may not be easy, but learning a language and how to communicate with its native speakers provides countless benefits and helps you to understand a whole new way of seeing the world.

So what are you waiting for? Starting learning a new language today!

By Andrea Reisenauer, guest blogger. Andrea Reisenauer is a language lover, ESL teacher Rocket Languages fan with a Master's degree in Translation. She speaks Spanish, Catalan, and Italian and is currently studying French.

This is the kind of article I enjoy reading. I love seeing similar or dissimilar patterns in the various languages.
Interestingly, it looks as if in the Korean section a line or two lines have been missed out.
GOMAPSEUMNIDA is formal and the "say it like this part" refers to the standard, less formal but not casual GAMZAHAMNIDA which is not written!

This tends to rock the confidence of the reader: does this mean that similar mistakes are made in the sections about languages with which the reader is not familiar?

Best wishes, Andrea.
Keep on trucking.
Schreiben Sie weiter!

Barry Shaw, Sprachenmitliebhaber,
New Zealand

Like it!
As a fan of "Nordic noir" or "Scandi noir" I'd like to include one I think you've missed - in Swedish it's "Tack" (pronounced as it looks).

Pete

Nice. And it's interesting to look at how many of the languages are written! I've found written Bengali (or Bangla) as interesting to copy as well as just to study ever since my having a "Pen Pal" who lives there and writes to my family. 
Thank you, Andrea!
:)Laura

Oh, gosh ! It´s too much to learn.

Well, I will add two languages more

CZECH (10.5 milions speakers)
Děkuji

SLOVAK  (5.4 milions speakers)
Ďakujem

Here is a link to a great video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3RnrfVaYAs

I'd like to add Hawaiian(around 2000 native speakers)  :
mahalo iā ʻoe

Obrigada about it. I'm brazilian and you did a great job. There is the masculine and feminine way of saying thank you and you taught it perfectly.   

Gratias is thank you in Latin
 

No native speakers, but I added it anyway