The most-used foreign words and phrases in English — which one crossed over best?

English has quietly borrowed from everywhere — a Chinese greeting from a kids' show, a Spanish farewell from an action movie, a Sanskrit greeting from yoga class, a Japanese word for singing badly into a microphone. Which loanword do you think earned its spot in everyday English the most?

🖼️ Bigger images

𝗕 Bold text

"Ni hao" (你好) — hello, from Nickelodeon to everyday use

Ni hao is Mandarin Chinese for "hello," and for a lot of American kids it entered the vocabulary through Nickelodeon's "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" (2008-2011), a preschool show that taught a new Mandarin word or phrase every episode alongside its title greeting. The show ran for three seasons and became one of the more visible attempts by US children's TV to introduce Mandarin into everyday speech, well before "learn Mandarin" apps and immersion schools became mainstream. Decades later, plenty of millennials and Gen Z kids who grew up on Nickelodeon still reflexively know "ni hao" as their first Chinese phrase, even if they never took a language class.

"Hasta la vista, baby" — a Spanish goodbye turned action-movie catchphrase

"Hasta la vista" is just ordinary Spanish for "see you later," the kind of casual goodbye millions of Spanish speakers use every day. But when Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 delivered "Hasta la vista, baby" before blowing up a cyborg in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the phrase exploded into English pop culture as a tough-guy exit line. It's been quoted, parodied, and referenced in everything from sitcoms to sports commentary ever since, arguably doing more to spread the phrase into English than any Spanish class ever did — even though most people who say it have no idea it just means "see you later."

"Namaste" — a yoga-class staple with Sanskrit roots

Namaste is a Sanskrit/Hindi greeting roughly meaning "I bow to you," traditionally said with hands pressed together at the chest. It became a fixture of English vocabulary as yoga spread through the West starting in the 1960s and 70s, with instructors closing nearly every class with the word and gesture. It got an unexpected second wave of attention in 2020, when world leaders — including Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, and Prince Charles — started greeting each other with a namaste-style bow instead of handshakes during COVID-19, turning a yoga-studio sign-off into a moment of actual diplomatic protocol.

"Karaoke" — a Japanese invention that became an English noun

Karaoke comes from Japanese "kara" (empty) and "oke" (short for okesutora, orchestra) — literally "empty orchestra," describing a backing track with no vocals. Invented in Japan in the early 1970s, the word and the activity spread worldwide and were fully absorbed into English as an ordinary noun, no translation needed. Its biggest English-language pop-culture moment came in Lost in Translation (2003), where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson's characters bond over a boozy karaoke night in Tokyo — a scene now as associated with the word as any dictionary definition.

Optional photo for your new option. Take one or choose from your device. Shown as a 200 x 200 pixel thumbnail, cropped from the centre.

✨ Vote to reveal a bonus tea Easter egg!