How to Say “World Cup” in 36 Languages

‘Since this list was mostly put together using Google Translate and internet forums, it’s very very possible that some of the above is incorrect.’
You have found the correct version of the Chinese equivalent actually, Daryl. Well done! :) With Chinese as my second language (English being the first one), that is certainly the term used in that language.

Arabic translation correct too, although a lot of Arabic speakers alternate between calling it that and just “el mondial.”

I think a more reliable way of doing it is using Wikipedia. Look at all the foreign language links on the left-hand side of this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup

Since most of those pages were written by native speakers, they’ll pick up certain subtleties better than a machine translator. For example, it’s “Copa do Mundo” (Cup of the World) in Portuguese, but “Copa Mundial” (Worldwide Cup) in Spanish.

in Spanish it would be Copa del Mundo or preferably Copa Mundial

Here’s the Wikipedia list:

Albanian FIFA Kampionati Botëror i Futbollit
Alemannic German Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft
Arabic كأس العالم لكرة القدم
Austro-Bavarian Fuaßboi-Wäidmoastaschaft
Azerbaijani FİFA Dünya Kuboku
Basque Munduko Futbol Txapelketa
Belarusian Чэмпіянат сьвету па футболе
Bengali ফিফা বিশ্বকাপ
Bosnian Svjetsko prvenstvo u nogometu
Breton Kib vell-droad ar bed
Bulgarian Световно първенство по футбол
Cantonese FIFA世界盃
Catalan Copa del Món de Futbol
Croatian Svjetsko prvenstvo u nogometu
Croatian Svjetsko prvenstvo u nogometu
Czech Mistrovství světa ve fotbale
Danish VM i fodbold
Dutch Wereldkampioenschap voetbal
Esperanto Futbala Mondpokalo
Estonian Jalgpalli maailmameistrivõistlused
Faroese HM fótbóltur
Finnish Jalkapallon maailmanmestaruuskilpailut
French Coupe du monde de la FIFA
Friulian Cope dal mont di balon
Galician Mundiais de Fútbol
Georgian ფიფა-ს მსოფლიო საფეხბურთო ჩემპიონატი
German Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft
Greek Παγκόσμιο κύπελλο ποδοσφαίρου
Hebrew גביע העולם בכדורגל
Hindi फ़ीफा विश्व कप
Hungarian Labdarúgó-világbajnokság
Icelandic Heimsmeistarakeppnin í knattspyrnu
Ido Kupo dil Mondo di Futbalo
Indonesian Piala Dunia FIFA
Irish Corn Sacair an Domhain
Italian Campionato mondiale di calcio
Japanese FIFAワールドカップ
Javanese Piala Donya FIFA
Korean FIFA 월드컵
Latvian FIFA Pasaules kauss
Lithuanian Pasaulio futbolo čempionatas
Luxembourgish Foussball-Weltmeeschterschaft
Malay Piala Dunia FIFA
Malayalam ലോക കപ്പ് ഫുട്ബോള്
Maltese Tazza tad-Dinja tal-Futbol
Mandarin Chinese 世界盃足球賽
Marathi फुटबॉल विश्वचषक
Neopolitan Campionato munniale ‘e pallone
Nepali फुटबल विश्वकप
Norwegian Verdensmesterskapet i fotball
Persian جام جهانی فوتبال
Polish Mistrzostwa świata w piłce nożnej
Portuguese Campeonato do Mundo de Futebol
Romanian Campionatul Mondial de Fotbal
Russian Чемпионат мира по футболу
Serbian Светско првенство у фудбалу
Sicilian Campiunatu munniali di palluni
Slovak Majstrovstvá sveta vo futbale
Slovenian Svetovno prvenstvo v nogometu
Spanish Copa Mundial de Fútbol
Swedish Världsmästerskapet i fotboll
Tamil உலகக்கோப்பை காற்பந்து
Thai ฟุตบอลโลก
Turkish FIFA Dünya Kupası
Ukranian Кубок світу з футболу
Venetian Canpionato mondiałe de bałon
Vietnamese Giải vô địch bóng đá thế giới
Welsh Cwpan y Byd Pêl-droed

Sorry, my previous comments got modded, probably cos I put a link in them.

What I said was, you can probably get more reliable answers by going to the Wikipedia page and using the foreign-language links on the left. They were written by native speakers, so they pick up on little subtleties like “Copa do Mundo” in Portuguese vs. “Copa Mundial” in Spanish. So, being an obsessive nerd, I went ahead and collected the Wikipedia translations.

The mods can erase my other two posts now =)

and in Flemmish it would be

weireldkampioenschap sjotten

most people in italy just call it “il mondiale”

Not just most people Oliviero, but all of Italy calls the World Cup “Il Mondiale”. The literal translation of World Cup (Coppa del Mondo) is never used.

Thanks guys,

Will update the list to include Il Mondiale instead.

The Spanish is wrong. It’s Copa DEL mundo, not Copa DO Mundo

In Hebrew most people just call it the Mondial (מונדיאל)

Even though “Copa del Mundo” is correct grammatically, most people in the Spanish speaking world refer to it as “La Copa Mundial”.

The Turkish is true.

”Dünya Kupası”

haha thanks for the effort for the article, but I think Dylan’s way of finding the translations worked out a lot better. I’m Korean, so i know that the article’s translation came out as “world football”, while Dylan’s method gives u the exact and correct translation. haha i do the same thing in wikipedia sometimes, clicking on the links on the left in other languages, in case i want to know a hard word in Korean. good effort on the article though~

most of mexico says el mundial

Yup, in Spanish it’s mostly called “el Mundial”, a descriptor for the world (worldly or earthly).

Also, Spanish is usually the most represented language at the World Cup :P … of course la Hispanofonia is guaranteed 4 spots from CONMEBOL alone, haha. Usually add to that 2 CONCACAF countries and Spain, and usually 7 of the 32 countries are Spanish-speaking, more than any other language.

Al Mundial!

Anyone wondering how to say the Persian translation, it would be:

“Jam-eh Jahaan”

Russian one is pronounced “koobok meera”.

Per above, the Danes call it VM i fodbold or more traditionally just VM, which is an abbreviation for verdenmesterskab.

Unsurprisingly, Danes use abbreviations a lot.

“of course la Hispanofonia is guaranteed 4 spots from CONMEBOL alone, haha”
not true, brazil qualified, and they’re not a spanish-speaking country
in fact, the most represented language will be english with 8 countries having it as a national language (cameroon, ghana, south africa, nigeria, usa, new zealand, australia, and england)
spanish is represented by 6 countries (spain, honduras, chile, uruguay, paraguay, and argentina)

The hindi version is pronounced Vishwa Cup…where Vishwa obviously means World

Macedonian: Светско првенство

woops…forgot mexico for the spanish speaking countries, anyway english would still beat spanish 8-7

I can verify that the sicilian translation is correct

Wow! Great Information i just knew few languages..

“not true, brazil qualified, and they’re not a spanish-speaking country”

woops! I was thinking CONMEBOL had 5 spots, not 4.5. And Cameroon speaks French (not to mention South Africa has 11 official languages), so I’d say they are tied ;)

“And Cameroon speaks French”
Official languages of Cameroon include French and English…while English is an official language of South Africa…
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter

Thanks for all the additions, both here in the comments and via email. I’ve updated the list with the latest suggestions. Any more please let me know.

Well, this is just one of the many old issues of Portuguese form Portugal vs Portuguese from Brazil… But anyways, I leave this info in here:

In Brazil, they say “Copa do Mundo”, but in Portugal, we say “Campeonato do Mundo”, like in the wikipedia list in one of the comments, but we also call it “O Mundial”, in a parallelism to “Il Mondiale” in italian or “El Mundial” in Spanish.

ethiopie would be “yealem wancha” – the world’s
cup

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“Anyway, it doesn’t really matter”

yup, not at all, it’s more like trivia than anything.

you are correct for Thai (ฟุตบอลโลก) which pronounce “foot-ball-loak (k sound not pronounce) and literally mean “world football”

The korean is 월드컵, what you have is literally “world soccer”.

What you could do is go to the Wikipedia page on the World Cup and then go and click on the different languages on the left hand side…haha~

I like this post, thanks

“not true, brazil qualified, and they’re not a spanish-speaking country”

woops! I was thinking CONMEBOL had 5 spots, not 4.5. And Cameroon speaks French (not to mention South Africa has 11 official languages), so I’d say they are tied ;)

haha thanks for the effort for the article, but I think Dylan’s way of finding the translations worked out a lot better. I’m Korean, so i know that the article’s translation came out as “world football”, while Dylan’s method gives u the exact and correct translation. haha i do the same thing in wikipedia sometimes, clicking on the links on the left in other languages, in case i want to know a hard word in Korean. good effort on the article though~

In Russian we actually don’t say “Кубок мира”, more common is “Чемпионат Мира” (which is World Championship”) or just “ЧМ” (pronounced “Che-Em”).
Salute!

As other colleagues/readers have already stated, here in Uruguay also the Soccer World Cup is referred to, colloquially, as “El Mundial” (everybody will know what you are talking about, without further ado). If you want however to translate the term “World Cup” correctly, it is “Campeonato Mundial (de Fútbol)”. The “cup” part is reserved for the podium, for the lucky teams who get it…