(Note: Many of these words have been Romanized.)
How to Say Tea in Different Languages
Afrikaans: tee
Albanian: caj (pronounced chai)
Arabic: chai or shai
Armenian: te
Azerbaijani: caj (pronounced chai)
Basque: tea
Belarusian: harbatu
Bengali/Bangla: cha
Bulgarian: chai
Catalan: te
Chinese (Cantonese): cha
Chinese (Mandarin): cha (second tone / pronounced with the "a" in a rising tone)
Croatian: caj (pronounced chai)
Czech: caj (pronounced cha-i)
Danish: te
Dutch: thee
English: tea
Esperanto: teo
Filipino/Tagalog: tsaa
Finnish: tee
French: le the (masculine)
Galician: te
Georgian: ch’ai
German: der Tee (masculine; the “T” is capitalized because all German nouns are capitalized)
Greek: tsai
Haitian Creole: te
Hebrew: teh
Hindi: chai
Hungarian: tea (plural: teak)
Irish: tae
Italian: te (pronounced teh)
Icelandic: te
Indonesian: teh
Japanese: ocha (-cha is used as a suffix)
Korean: cha
Latvian: teja (pronounced tay-ya)
Lithuanian: arbata
Luxembourgish: Tei (like in German, all nouns are capitalized in Luxembourish)
Macedonian: chaj (pronounced chai)
Malay: teh
Maltese: te
Norwegian: te
Persian: chay (pronounced chai in most areas)
Polish: herbata
Portuguese: cha (pronounced shah with a Brazilian accent)
Romanian: ceai
Russian: chai
Serbian: caj (pronounced chai)
Sinhalese (Sri Lanka): the (The word for teapot is actually a Dutch loanword. It is theepot.)
Slovak: caj (pronounced chai)
Slovenian: caj (pronounced chai)
Somali: shaah
Spanish: el te (masculine; pronounced tay)
Swahili: chai (pronounced cha-i)
Swedish: te
Taiwanese: de (boba naicha refers to Taiwan’s popular “tapioca pearl tea”)
Tamil (Sri Lanka): tea
Thai: chah (chah yen refers to Thai iced tea)
Tibetan: cha or ja
Turkish: cay (pronounced chai)
Ukrainian: chaj (pronounced chay)
Urdu: chai
(North) Vietnamese: che
(South) Vietnamese: tra (sometimes pronounced cha or ja)
Wolof: achai (pronounced uh-chuy)
Welsh: te
Yiddish: tey
Zulu: itiye
Pronunciations of “Tea” Around the World
The root words for “tea” can be traced back to China, where it was called “cha” or “tay.” Today, most words for tea sound something like cha/chai or tea/te/te.
Cha
The word “cha” is used for tea in the following languages: Bengali/Bangla,Cantonese, Korean, Sinhalese and Tibetan.
Variations on “cha” include Mandarin (in which cha is pronounced with the a in a rising tone), Somali (shaah), Thai (chah), Tibetan (in which cha is sometimes pronounced ja), North Vietnamese (che) and South Vietnamese (in which tra is sometimes pronounced cha or ja).
Chai
Languages that pronounce tea as “chai”: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Hindi, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish and Urdu.
Languages with variations on “chai” include similar pronunciations Arabic (shai), Croatian (chai), Czech (cha-i), Georgian (ch’ai), Greek (tsai), Romanian (ceai), Serbian (chai), Swahili (cha-i), Thai (chah), Ukrainian (chay) and Wolof (achai).
Tea
The word tea is used in Basque, English, Hungarian (in which the plural of tea is teak) and Tamil. Variations of the word tea include tee (Afrikaans and Finnish), thee (Dutch), teo (Esperanto) and der Tee (German).
Te
Te is the word for tea in Catalan, Galician and Haitian Creole. Variation of this word for tea include le the (French), tae (Irish), teja (pronounced tay-ya; Latvian), Tei (Luxembourgish), la te (pronounced tay; Spanish) and tey (Yiddish).
Te
Te (pronounced teh) is the word for tea in Armenian, Danish, Italian, Icelandic, Maltese, Norwegian, Swedish and Welsh. The word for tea is teh in Hebrew, Indonesian and Malay.
For more information on tea around the world, check out this listing of international tea drinks. It's especially useful if you plan to drink tea while traveling abroad.
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