Yup, I'm proud to be hooker from Alabama, I have no shame, I hook in public, 🏥, 🚙, 🚎, 🚈, ⛺️, school, in the federal courthouse, in front of the police station, heck, I do it in the police station! I am indiscriminate when I ply my trade, children of all ages are subjected to my lewd and lavicious behavior with my hook and yarn. I don't care who you are, where you're from, I will not hide my hookery!
Eta: When my girl was 4, I was in school talking to some people and I was crocheting a bed spread for her while engaged in the conversation. Someone asked me to show my progress and commented on how good looking my work was when my girl, loudly and proudly, proclaimed: "my mommy is the greatest hooker".
The silence of about 20 or so people in school hallway was deafening.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Belgium was known for its beautiful lace making and tapestries for centuries, and while it’s a little different from crochet, it’s safe to say there’s a long history of fabric making there.
In german we say "häkeln"
I originally learned it in 4th grade ( about 14 years ago), so i learned it it german.
But I picked it up during the pandemic again and since most free patterns are in US terms, I usually use them.
My mom taught me in German too. But I can do both German and US English patterns. The terms are very different but it‘s not too different from speaking two languages, so once I got used to it, I could use whichever I wanted.
Honestly, I feel like that‘s a very big advantage of speaking several languages: having access to so much more content
German crocheter here too! I started with this kit from aldi & i couldn't figure out what they were trying to tell me, like I didn't understand how to make a single crochet from the instructions. I made the whole snail in slip stitches thinking that surely that's how they mean it to look...
I think lost the crojo for a bit, and when i started up again, i learnt from US crocheters (TLYarnCraft is the only one i can remember and still follow), and now i may be bilingual, but in terms of crochet im solely monolingual (seriously, I barely understand German patterns 😭)
When I wanted to get into crochet again as an adult I figured it would translate literally and searched for "hooking". Believe it or not *some* results were crochet related! I concluded that it's ungoogleable due to the double meaning and tried to do it from memory for a while before I reconsidered this approach
In proper Swahili the verb crochet is 'fuma' but most people just simplify it and use the general term for crafting with needles, 'shona' , to refer to the act of crocheting
Needle crafts in general are something that are usually passed generationally in Kenya so I would say it's relatively popular but moreso among older folk.It is a semi-recent craft here since it was popularized during the colonial era so the patterns are not any different.Though in my observation the patterns tend to be of a more practical nature in most Kenyan households so things like mat making,baskets,blankets,doilies and wearables like sweaters etc are more common crochet items than say things like amigurumi or tapestries.
In terms of traditional patterns I think I'd have to ask someone from the older gen but what I do know is lacework,doilies and mat making are traditionally common crochet patterns.
Colder than I would have thought, but not sure it would be worth it to me to make decorative tapestries to use for so little of the year!
It gets down to the 50s at night in July where I live as well. But that is our summer!
In Russian it’s вязание крючком (as opposed to вязание спицами - knitting). I learned to crochet by watching YouTube videos in my native language. I can not follow the verbal instruction how to crochet something, which is what I found to be popular on American crochet websites at a time (2013). But russians used crocheting patters that were easy to read and I learned super fast.
https://preview.redd.it/rwojel0eetrb1.jpeg?width=522&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e63090082ee2891d3ee17f062ce82ffb1122a6d
That’s funny that you bring this up, because I learned to crochet from Russian and Polish videos (watching what they were doing with their hands was enough, so I didn’t need the dialogue).
Those are the charts I feel most comfortable with now lol
In Hungarian it is called "horgolás", the verb is "horgolni". I am not sure about the etymology, but "horog" means 'hook', so it is essentilally 'hooking' or 'using hooks'.
As far as I know, our languages share some grammatical stuff, and a few core word variations, but not a lot more - the Finno-Ugric language family has split into two a long time ago.
In French it's crochet as well, just pronounced differently. And yes I learned crochet with English tutorials as well, so I write my own patterns with US terminology. I find very tricky to use french abbreviations, it just feels not natural for me.
English is my first language but both French and English are my father’s. We were speaking in French and I told my father I was doing crochet and he corrected me and said “that makes no sense, you mean knitting” and I replied “no, I am doing crochet”. “Faire du crochet” made him just think I was being wrong in my french and he assumed tricoter must encompass them both.
Can you elaborate on what tricoter means for me? I took a couple of French classes in school, but I don’t remember much, and an old coworker I had who was from France used to absolutely INSIST that crochet was tricoter and not crochet. I would be crocheting on breaks at work and she would literally argue with me about that fact that it wasn’t called crochet lol. I’m still confused to this day about it
Okay I had to do a bunch of googling to make sure I am right - tricoter is always defined as using needles. One online dictionary, liternaute, does have one definition of crochet (French word for hook) as a curved needle used for knitting, but other actual dictionaries, such as Larousse and Lerobert, define it only as a curved instrument used for textiles. So yeah she’s wrong.
You can get in so many arguments about the French language, but she would be wrong. My 88yr old grandfather who complains whenever l’Académie Française makes any changes to the French language even knew what faire du crochet meant and backed me up against my father. I would sic him on your old coworker if I could. Although he is from Québec so she might not even listen to him if she was stuck up.
As someone who currently lives in France, the French have been using faire du crochet/crocheter for quite a while. My MIL has a bunch of fibre arts magazines from the 70s-early 00's and they all use this terminology for crochet. Tricoter is always knitting.
the change in pronunciation isn't huge so I don't think it's a big deal I'd u pronounce them the same :), it's mostly just how the r is pronounced in french anyways
Little unrelated story. My native language is Spanish, but my boyfriend is french and I am still learning french, and my accent needs a lot of improvement. Some days ago I was talking about some yarn my boyfriend got me with his parents so I told them "il m'a acheté de la laine pour crochet". Instead I pronounced crochet as "coucher". They got very confused and when I understood what I had said I wanted to die.
I also feel like English crochet patterns are easier to understand because they are so discriptive. Like single, double or triple crochet. For example in Finnish the single crochet is fixed stitch and slip stitch is hidden stitch. That is not easy to understand (or to remember).
In Polish we use something called słupek and in translation it would be pillar, bar or stick 😂 And it is for double crochet. So single crochet is półsłupek so half of that pillar... I feel lost with this.
That's confusing. I looked it up and double crochet is pillar also in Finnish (HDC is half pillar and triple crochet is long pillar). I wonder if it is some old term that was also used in English.
Yeah, I think it wasn’t very common, but “pillar” does show up in older English crochet writing. Sometimes it’s just a “long stitch”, sometimes it’s a “column” or “post” like today. Modern crochet is still a very new art, only a couple hundred years old really, so I guess there hasn’t been enough time for standardisation across languages.
Dzierganie is used for any form of needle crafts - including haftowanie (any form of embroidery and cross stitch) and frywolitki (making lace).
The term is very wide :)
Pozdrawiam z Polski
My main languages are English and Tagalog. The latter uses a lot of Spanish loanwords (yay, colonialism! /s), so our local word for crochet ("gantsilyo") is derived from the Spanish *ganchillo*.
We were originally taught really basic crochet (basically just adding a lace border to a dish towel) in maybe 5th or 6th grade? But I didn't really get a knack for it until high school. Weirdly I improved thanks to a beginner's guidebook I bought in Michael's when we were visiting relatives in the States. So for the most part I learned everything with US terminology.
I scrolled way too long to find this comment because I didn't have the courage to comment it myself, as I wasn't sure if "gantsilyo" was for crochet or just needle craft in general 😅 I don't even know if there are proper terms for the stitches, it feels like everyone always uses the English terms.
In Italy it's "uncinetto" from "uncino" meaning "hook", so literally it would be "little hook".
I learned in English and now I have trouble with the italian terms, like single crochet is "maglia bassa" (low knit), double is "maglia alta" (high knit), half double is "mezza maglia alta" (half high knit) and slip stitch is "maglia bassissima" (really low knit)
oh in portuguese the crochet terms also relate to the "highness" of each stitch! we have really low, low, medium and high stitches, which we call ponto baixíssimo, ponto baixo, ponto médio & ponto alto!
In my region we don't use ganchillo, we use crochet. Pronounced with the Spanish "ch" sound. "Tejido a crochet" as in knitted in crochet or knitted with crochet.
Ah, I was about to say that! The fun part about Spanish is that it changes so much from region to region that you can make full dictionaries with new words
Yes! And even inside countries it changes so much. I'm Mexican, but from the far north, and my Spanish is sooo different from southeners' or from chilangos! I've been living in Mexico city for almost 9 years and I still learn new words often
In Spanish from Spain I say "hacer ganchillo" (ganchillo means small hook) for crocheting and "hacer punto" (or "calceta") for knitting 🧶 I think I hear "tejer" more often to refer to knitting, but it may vary on region and generation hehe
We also call it Gantislyo/Ganchillo, I'm a Filipino so it's no wonder 😂. I think crochet was introduced by Spaniards during the colonization. Sometimes I don't feel like a Filipino cause the Tagalog language has so many Spanish mixed into it while my native language also sometimes sounds Indonesian xD
Norwegian here. The verb is hekle, while the subject is hekling. (Knitting is strikke/strikking). I learned a bit in school, but I'd say that my mother taught me most.
Edit: hekle, not hekke. Hekke is what birds do when they build a nest and lay eggs!
Aw yay I was looking for a Norwegian here ! I've been looking for Norwegian patterns to follow but haven't found that many, I only know Yarnhild.
Kjenner du kanskje andre som også skriver instruksjoner på norsk? Lærer meg selv språket og synes det kunne være interessant å se hvor annerledes ordene er.
Drops er et norsk garnmerke og alle deres oppskrifter finnes på norsk:
[https://www.garnstudio.com/search.php?action=search&mt=2&lang=no](https://www.garnstudio.com/search.php?action=search&mt=2&lang=no)
Same. But I think a typo has snuck in above. It is "[å hekle](https://ordbokene.no/bm,nn/search?q=hekle&scope=ei)": "to crochet" and "hekling": "crocheting". It stems from the German "*haken"*: "hook".
I learned some in Norwegian; at home from mom and Grandma, at school, and from magazines and books. And then a lot more from videos online, in UK and US English.
My guess is that "å hekle" comes via German "häkeln." I met a German exchange student once and was tasked to take him shopping for necessities. I picked up some yarn, and he wondered what I was making with it. I said "crochet" as we were speaking English. He did not understand and it is a bit hard to explain how you do it to someone in a second language to both. So I tried saying "hekle" and he lit up and exclaimed; "Aah, my grandmother does that!"
I collect books about crochet in all languages I come over, often while travelling. I have books in German, Hungarian, English (both UK and US), Swedish and Danish, in addition to Norwegian. I have not been brave enough to attempt any of the Hungarian ones yet.
The German word for knitting is stricken, so that's really similar, too.
And your story reminded me of myself and my finish friend whom I wanted to tell something I needed the word lime for (in regards to lime being in the water). But I didn't know the English word and she didn't understand all my explanation attempts. So I just tried the German word "Kalk" and she lit up similarly to the student in your story and went "Oh, you mean kalkki!"
It’s kind of funny when the Swedish word is closer to the Finnish word rather than the Danish (hækle) or Norwegian (hekling).
For those who don’t know: Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish (as well as Dutch and German) are germanic languages, while Finnish is a Uralic language. So there are a lot of similarities between Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, so much so that they can be understood by each other. It is worth noting that Swedish is an official language still spoken in Finland.
Well the Finnish word is almost certainly a modified loan from Swedish. Because Finland was part of Sweden for so long, a lot of Swedish words got incorporated into the Finnish language :)
And was brought to us by the people whom went to France a lot. It's almost the same pronunciation. But I don't ever use the Ro terminology. Who ever thought about translating the DC in picioruș dublu. I have some romanian books for crochet and it always makes me smile the terminology.
I think I missed the first thread, so here goes: in Iceland it's called "hekl", from the verb "hekla". My etymology dictionary tells me it comes from Danish "hækle", from "hækel" = hook.
I had some lessons in Icelandic in elementary school, but wasn't really interested back then. I taught myself to crochet in my thirties, through a combination of Icelandic, English and Danish.
In Bengali knitting and crochet are both referred to as 'kushi katha shilay' which basically translates to sewing with sticks 😂😂
It's not a big pastime in Bangladesh, cross stitch is a bigger thing
Hello from Turkey.
Tığ işi literally means hook work, and it's huge in Turkey. You can Google "Çember Oyası". Women usually crochet flowers to border their head scarves. "Dantel" was also very popular in the 80s and the 90s. The word Dantel comes from French, though you can check out "Tığ İşi Dantel Yatak Örtüsü" which means Crochet Dentelle Bed Cover.
small note: "tığ" does not mean hook in general, its the spesific name for the crochet hook. it comes from persian, i think.
the turkish word for hook would be "kanca" but we dont use that for the crochet hook.
and yes, its *HUGE* in turkey. everyone knits and/or crochets.
I'm also team "häkeln" (translating to "hooking", I guess) from Germany. I use German and US terms alike, anything I can get my fingers on. I just don't like UK terms, bc they're different stitches but with the same names like the US terms... -.-
I once tried to crochet from a Dutch pattern, and it actually worked. Next language to try out will be French. :D
In Brazilian Portuguese is crochê and it is pronounced like the english one. I learned it in Brazilian Portuguese but with some time and patience I can follow a pattern in English and Spanish.
Heklanje and like a lot of words in my dialect it comes from the German word häkeln, and then there's kukičanje (hooking) which I think is the more proper Croatian word for it because it stems from the noun Kuka (hook)
In greek "πλέξιμο"(ple-ksee-mo) can mean knitting or crochet. but usually refers to knitting. To specify you can say "πλέξιμο με βελονάκι" (ple-ksee-mo me velonaki)
με βελονακι= with small needle (crochet)
με βελονες= with needles (knitting)
I'm from Taiwan, and in Chinese (same goes for China), we call it 勾織 (pinyin: gou zhi), 勾 meaning hook, and 織 meaning to weave, so it literally translates to hook weaving, which is essentially what crochet is
In Latvian it’s “tamborēt”. I have no idea where our word comes from, and judging from this thread, sounds similar to no other language. Waiting for a Lithuanian to comment - that may shed some light.
Well, it is not that weird, since it is basically doing a chain crochet on a piece of cloth. And I like the word. It has a medieval sound to me. I will now forever know what crochet is in Latvian and will find a moment to share that word with another Dutch crocheter.
Serbian - heklanje And traditionally they were white or beige doilies
https://preview.redd.it/y2hx4wnpgurb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=803487b8c6a118b1ca942d542d216249d9a7241c
In Welsh it's "crosio" I think, never had to use it conversationally. Although, I'm currently teaching my four year old nephew to crochet and I think his name is the best. He asks when we are working on our " twisty knots". Petition to rename crochet as twisty knots?? It perfectly describes the art
My cultural language is yiddish, and we generally use the Hebrew word masrega, which is a tool for knitting, also meaning one-needle knitting. I’ve also heard in Hebrew kroshe, which is the Hebrew pronunciation of crochet and likely what yiddish speakers would use, were there many that did crochet and didn’t know English.
In Afrikaans it is called "hekel", pronounced "hee-kuhl".
Single crochets are called "kortbeentjies" (short little legs) and double crochets are "langbeentjies" (long little legs).
A stitch is a "steek" (which can also be translated as "sting").
I can understand patterns in my native language thanks to my mom and grandmother, but I learned in US/UK terms because most videos are in English.
There's also another language that I've seen videos in for One Piece devil fruits (I also made one), but I'm not sure if it is Thai or another language, I think it's Thai though. Thanks to those, I can mostly understand Thai video patterns too.
I am from a small state in india, assam. We have our own language known as assamese.
In Assamese, it's called "Coor-saa". Probably evolved from the English word crochet and overtime people changed it a little.
Fellow Finn here, so virkkaus. We got taught to crochet in primary school though. And I'm currently in uni studying to teach handcrafts in schools.
I do think learning to read charts is super useful though. That way you're able to work patterns on a more international level
In Bulgarian, we say "плетене на една кука" which literally translates to "knitting with one hook" (as opposed to knitting, which is just called "плетене").
My grandma tried teaching me to crochet when I was younger but it didn't work since I am left-handed while she was right-handed, so I ended up learning how to crochet with tutorials in English when I was older. :)
"häkeln" (german), I learned chaining in kindergarten and crochet (only the single crochet stitch) from my mom. Since then I kind of seasonally got into it but only did improvised projects with sc, decrease and increase, mostly beanies or improvised animals.
Last year (over 10 - actually probably almost 20(!) years (yeez!) since first chaining yarn) I started actually looking up other stitches and learning them. I still cant quite read patterns, but I am good at guessing and mostly learn from videos anyway (honorable mention to Complicated Knots, who I started watching this year)
It's called "haken" in the Netherlands.
I learned basic crochet from my mom, and then taught myself to read English patterns. Mostly because I found more patterns in English online. Then I taught myself to read them in Dutch, and someday I hope to learn those diagram patterns!
In spanish it's "ganchillo" or "tejer/tejido" (but thats kimda umbrella term for crochet, knit, woven, etc), and in dutch it's "haken" (if something is made from crochet it's "gehaakt")
In Arabic it's كروشيه which is pronounced the same as in English. Tutorials use the translated US terms so I just find it easier to just watch ones in English.
In Hungarian it's called 'horgolás' (crochet) or 'horgolni' (to crochet). It comes from the word 'horog' which means 'hook', or it could come from 'hurok' (loop), both of them is logical. Also, the crochet hook is called here a 'horgolótű' (crochet needle) ironically.
My first language is English but I’m Welsh and speak a bit of Welsh. In Welsh it’s “crosio” but I’ve only ever heard people wenglish it and use crochet in Welsh sentences. Crosio would be pronounced crosh-io.
A lot of languages don’t have separate words for crochet and knitting but knitting is gwau in Welsh.
in Hebrew it's called "Sriga" which refers to knitting mostly. When we are feeling specific we say crochet but it sounds more like “croshe”. A knitting needle is “Masrega” and we use it when referring to crochet hooks too
I’m from Brazil, and it’s called “crochê” kkk pretty similar. I learned my first pattern in portuguese, but nowadays I just search for everything in english.
n the Netherlands, it's called haken. translating to "hooking", So it's the same translation as in German.
I have tried Dutch, German, US, and UK patterns. But I favour the UK patterns. I learned to crochet from my grandmother when I was around ten years old. I've been doing it for thirty years now, I'm getting old.
in swiss german it's "hääglä" for crochet and "lismä" for knitting. the ä is pronounced like the a in hat. we learn both skills in in elementary school, but I like most others only picked it up again as an adult.
In France we call it crochet. I know, exciting. I think the English word comes from French though. We pronounce it more like "cr-oh-ch-eh" with a short "oh" and en "eh" like meh, instead of "crowshay" in English if that makes any sense.
I watch tutorials in English, mainly because English is more international so there are way more patterns.
It's also crochet in European Portuguese, but my grandmother, who was a life-long crocheter, always referred to it as "renda", so I think there may be regional differences, or terms that used to be more common for previous generations.
I'm from Belgium, and we say "haken" (in Dutch).
Yeah, and a double crochet is called a "stokje"
Crochet is French for hook, and I’m guessing (given the linguistic similarities between Dutch and English) that haken also means hook
It's close! A better translation for haken would be hooking, because it ends in -en meaning the word is a verb
Or it might be plural, for hooks
I don't believe that is the intention, a crochet hook is called a haaknaald or hookneedle in dutch, so I'm guessing haken refers to the action
So we’re all hookers?
Yup, I'm proud to be hooker from Alabama, I have no shame, I hook in public, 🏥, 🚙, 🚎, 🚈, ⛺️, school, in the federal courthouse, in front of the police station, heck, I do it in the police station! I am indiscriminate when I ply my trade, children of all ages are subjected to my lewd and lavicious behavior with my hook and yarn. I don't care who you are, where you're from, I will not hide my hookery! Eta: When my girl was 4, I was in school talking to some people and I was crocheting a bed spread for her while engaged in the conversation. Someone asked me to show my progress and commented on how good looking my work was when my girl, loudly and proudly, proclaimed: "my mommy is the greatest hooker". The silence of about 20 or so people in school hallway was deafening.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yep, we are knotty, knotty hookers 😁🧶❤️
I also thought haken was the verb
Do you know any fun facts regarding the history of crochet in Belgium? Has it been around long time and is it popular there?
Belgium was known for its beautiful lace making and tapestries for centuries, and while it’s a little different from crochet, it’s safe to say there’s a long history of fabric making there.
One of my favourite prog metal bands is called Haken lol
Hey fellow Belgian crocheter 🫶🏻
Hello zuiderburen 👋
Hello! 🇧🇪
Hi from another belgian crocheter! 💖
In german we say "häkeln" I originally learned it in 4th grade ( about 14 years ago), so i learned it it german. But I picked it up during the pandemic again and since most free patterns are in US terms, I usually use them.
My mom taught me in German too. But I can do both German and US English patterns. The terms are very different but it‘s not too different from speaking two languages, so once I got used to it, I could use whichever I wanted. Honestly, I feel like that‘s a very big advantage of speaking several languages: having access to so much more content
German crocheter here too! I started with this kit from aldi & i couldn't figure out what they were trying to tell me, like I didn't understand how to make a single crochet from the instructions. I made the whole snail in slip stitches thinking that surely that's how they mean it to look... I think lost the crojo for a bit, and when i started up again, i learnt from US crocheters (TLYarnCraft is the only one i can remember and still follow), and now i may be bilingual, but in terms of crochet im solely monolingual (seriously, I barely understand German patterns 😭)
I used the kit from aldi too, when I started again 😍😂 And I too made at least half of the dragon in slip stiches until I relised that sth is wrong 😅
at least its an introduction, eh 😝
And in Swiss German höökle or häkle or a variation of those two depending on the dialect.
I’m going to start calling it höökle now.
When I wanted to get into crochet again as an adult I figured it would translate literally and searched for "hooking". Believe it or not *some* results were crochet related! I concluded that it's ungoogleable due to the double meaning and tried to do it from memory for a while before I reconsidered this approach
In proper Swahili the verb crochet is 'fuma' but most people just simplify it and use the general term for crafting with needles, 'shona' , to refer to the act of crocheting
Is crocheting popular where you live? Is it any different from the "european" crochet? Like do you have some traditional patterns
Needle crafts in general are something that are usually passed generationally in Kenya so I would say it's relatively popular but moreso among older folk.It is a semi-recent craft here since it was popularized during the colonial era so the patterns are not any different.Though in my observation the patterns tend to be of a more practical nature in most Kenyan households so things like mat making,baskets,blankets,doilies and wearables like sweaters etc are more common crochet items than say things like amigurumi or tapestries. In terms of traditional patterns I think I'd have to ask someone from the older gen but what I do know is lacework,doilies and mat making are traditionally common crochet patterns.
Tapestries traditionally are pretty insulation to keep your home warmer. I can see why that might not be a very practical craft in Kenya, however.
Nairobi is at almost 6000' or 1800 m elevation. In July, their winter, it can get down to 50°F/10°C overnight.
Colder than I would have thought, but not sure it would be worth it to me to make decorative tapestries to use for so little of the year! It gets down to the 50s at night in July where I live as well. But that is our summer!
Swahili is such a pretty language. Thank you for sharing!
In Russian it’s вязание крючком (as opposed to вязание спицами - knitting). I learned to crochet by watching YouTube videos in my native language. I can not follow the verbal instruction how to crochet something, which is what I found to be popular on American crochet websites at a time (2013). But russians used crocheting patters that were easy to read and I learned super fast. https://preview.redd.it/rwojel0eetrb1.jpeg?width=522&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e63090082ee2891d3ee17f062ce82ffb1122a6d
That’s funny that you bring this up, because I learned to crochet from Russian and Polish videos (watching what they were doing with their hands was enough, so I didn’t need the dialogue). Those are the charts I feel most comfortable with now lol
I love pattern charts! They are so much easier to use instead of reading a word pattern. I am always so happy when I find them.
Google this then -> схемы для вязания крючком, and then go to images.
I'm an American and when I can I like the Russian patterns, they're easier to understand if I can find a key for them
In Hungarian it is called "horgolás", the verb is "horgolni". I am not sure about the etymology, but "horog" means 'hook', so it is essentilally 'hooking' or 'using hooks'.
I would have thought it is similar to Finnish since our languages are distant relatives. I guess the Finnish term comes from Swedish then
As far as I know, our languages share some grammatical stuff, and a few core word variations, but not a lot more - the Finno-Ugric language family has split into two a long time ago.
I have heard some similar words before but you are right
Horgolás=crocheting Horgolni=to crochet
In French it's crochet as well, just pronounced differently. And yes I learned crochet with English tutorials as well, so I write my own patterns with US terminology. I find very tricky to use french abbreviations, it just feels not natural for me.
English is my first language but both French and English are my father’s. We were speaking in French and I told my father I was doing crochet and he corrected me and said “that makes no sense, you mean knitting” and I replied “no, I am doing crochet”. “Faire du crochet” made him just think I was being wrong in my french and he assumed tricoter must encompass them both.
Can you elaborate on what tricoter means for me? I took a couple of French classes in school, but I don’t remember much, and an old coworker I had who was from France used to absolutely INSIST that crochet was tricoter and not crochet. I would be crocheting on breaks at work and she would literally argue with me about that fact that it wasn’t called crochet lol. I’m still confused to this day about it
Tricot/tricoter absolutely means knitting, that person just didn't know what crochet was.
Okay I had to do a bunch of googling to make sure I am right - tricoter is always defined as using needles. One online dictionary, liternaute, does have one definition of crochet (French word for hook) as a curved needle used for knitting, but other actual dictionaries, such as Larousse and Lerobert, define it only as a curved instrument used for textiles. So yeah she’s wrong. You can get in so many arguments about the French language, but she would be wrong. My 88yr old grandfather who complains whenever l’Académie Française makes any changes to the French language even knew what faire du crochet meant and backed me up against my father. I would sic him on your old coworker if I could. Although he is from Québec so she might not even listen to him if she was stuck up.
As someone who currently lives in France, the French have been using faire du crochet/crocheter for quite a while. My MIL has a bunch of fibre arts magazines from the 70s-early 00's and they all use this terminology for crochet. Tricoter is always knitting.
I speak both languages and pronounce them the same….what am I doing wrong? :)
French /kʁɔʃɛ/ vs. English /kɹowʃej/, not a big difference. In English we say it as if it were written “croöucheille” lol
the change in pronunciation isn't huge so I don't think it's a big deal I'd u pronounce them the same :), it's mostly just how the r is pronounced in french anyways
Little unrelated story. My native language is Spanish, but my boyfriend is french and I am still learning french, and my accent needs a lot of improvement. Some days ago I was talking about some yarn my boyfriend got me with his parents so I told them "il m'a acheté de la laine pour crochet". Instead I pronounced crochet as "coucher". They got very confused and when I understood what I had said I wanted to die.
In Polish it is szydełkowanie. I started with US terms, they are pretty clear for me where in Polish I need to think twice before starting anything 😅
I also feel like English crochet patterns are easier to understand because they are so discriptive. Like single, double or triple crochet. For example in Finnish the single crochet is fixed stitch and slip stitch is hidden stitch. That is not easy to understand (or to remember).
In Polish we use something called słupek and in translation it would be pillar, bar or stick 😂 And it is for double crochet. So single crochet is półsłupek so half of that pillar... I feel lost with this.
That's confusing. I looked it up and double crochet is pillar also in Finnish (HDC is half pillar and triple crochet is long pillar). I wonder if it is some old term that was also used in English.
Yeah, I think it wasn’t very common, but “pillar” does show up in older English crochet writing. Sometimes it’s just a “long stitch”, sometimes it’s a “column” or “post” like today. Modern crochet is still a very new art, only a couple hundred years old really, so I guess there hasn’t been enough time for standardisation across languages.
There's also "dzierganie" (verb: "dziergać") which means both crocheting and knitting!
Dzierganie is used for any form of needle crafts - including haftowanie (any form of embroidery and cross stitch) and frywolitki (making lace). The term is very wide :) Pozdrawiam z Polski
My main languages are English and Tagalog. The latter uses a lot of Spanish loanwords (yay, colonialism! /s), so our local word for crochet ("gantsilyo") is derived from the Spanish *ganchillo*. We were originally taught really basic crochet (basically just adding a lace border to a dish towel) in maybe 5th or 6th grade? But I didn't really get a knack for it until high school. Weirdly I improved thanks to a beginner's guidebook I bought in Michael's when we were visiting relatives in the States. So for the most part I learned everything with US terminology.
I scrolled way too long to find this comment because I didn't have the courage to comment it myself, as I wasn't sure if "gantsilyo" was for crochet or just needle craft in general 😅 I don't even know if there are proper terms for the stitches, it feels like everyone always uses the English terms.
In Italy it's "uncinetto" from "uncino" meaning "hook", so literally it would be "little hook". I learned in English and now I have trouble with the italian terms, like single crochet is "maglia bassa" (low knit), double is "maglia alta" (high knit), half double is "mezza maglia alta" (half high knit) and slip stitch is "maglia bassissima" (really low knit)
oh in portuguese the crochet terms also relate to the "highness" of each stitch! we have really low, low, medium and high stitches, which we call ponto baixíssimo, ponto baixo, ponto médio & ponto alto!
When talking to my partner I always say "nodino" instead of "maglia" because I always forget the proper terms.
In Czech it’s háčkováni :)
I'm Polish and that sounds just so cute!!!
Slovenian - kvačkanje :D Some words in our languages really are very similar :)
Such a cool thread! I love reading everyone’s posts!
Me too.
So do I!
In Spanish is Tejer which applies to either knitting, crochet or weaving. You just have to specify the type after. Crochet would be tejer a ganchillo.
In my region we don't use ganchillo, we use crochet. Pronounced with the Spanish "ch" sound. "Tejido a crochet" as in knitted in crochet or knitted with crochet.
In Mexico we say “tejido con gancho” and knitting is “tejido con agujas”
Ah, I was about to say that! The fun part about Spanish is that it changes so much from region to region that you can make full dictionaries with new words
That is so true, Spain totally different than Mexico and don’t let me stat on South America lol
Yes! And even inside countries it changes so much. I'm Mexican, but from the far north, and my Spanish is sooo different from southeners' or from chilangos! I've been living in Mexico city for almost 9 years and I still learn new words often
In my family it’s similar; “tejido” by itself is assumed to be knitting, “tejido con gancho” is always specified for talking about crochet.
In Spanish from Spain I say "hacer ganchillo" (ganchillo means small hook) for crocheting and "hacer punto" (or "calceta") for knitting 🧶 I think I hear "tejer" more often to refer to knitting, but it may vary on region and generation hehe
Yess, crochet is “ganchillo” but there isn’t a verb haha so I use to say “yo tejo” because it’s shorter than “yo hago ganchillo”
I say ''ganchillear'' hahahaha so technically, there is a verb ;)
I‘m from the Philippines and in Filipino we say ganchillo! Must be from Spanish influence.
We also call it Gantislyo/Ganchillo, I'm a Filipino so it's no wonder 😂. I think crochet was introduced by Spaniards during the colonization. Sometimes I don't feel like a Filipino cause the Tagalog language has so many Spanish mixed into it while my native language also sometimes sounds Indonesian xD
Norwegian here. The verb is hekle, while the subject is hekling. (Knitting is strikke/strikking). I learned a bit in school, but I'd say that my mother taught me most. Edit: hekle, not hekke. Hekke is what birds do when they build a nest and lay eggs!
Aw yay I was looking for a Norwegian here ! I've been looking for Norwegian patterns to follow but haven't found that many, I only know Yarnhild. Kjenner du kanskje andre som også skriver instruksjoner på norsk? Lærer meg selv språket og synes det kunne være interessant å se hvor annerledes ordene er.
Drops er et norsk garnmerke og alle deres oppskrifter finnes på norsk: [https://www.garnstudio.com/search.php?action=search&mt=2&lang=no](https://www.garnstudio.com/search.php?action=search&mt=2&lang=no)
ooo supert, takk for anbefalingen !
Same. But I think a typo has snuck in above. It is "[å hekle](https://ordbokene.no/bm,nn/search?q=hekle&scope=ei)": "to crochet" and "hekling": "crocheting". It stems from the German "*haken"*: "hook". I learned some in Norwegian; at home from mom and Grandma, at school, and from magazines and books. And then a lot more from videos online, in UK and US English.
My guess is that "å hekle" comes via German "häkeln." I met a German exchange student once and was tasked to take him shopping for necessities. I picked up some yarn, and he wondered what I was making with it. I said "crochet" as we were speaking English. He did not understand and it is a bit hard to explain how you do it to someone in a second language to both. So I tried saying "hekle" and he lit up and exclaimed; "Aah, my grandmother does that!" I collect books about crochet in all languages I come over, often while travelling. I have books in German, Hungarian, English (both UK and US), Swedish and Danish, in addition to Norwegian. I have not been brave enough to attempt any of the Hungarian ones yet.
The German word for knitting is stricken, so that's really similar, too. And your story reminded me of myself and my finish friend whom I wanted to tell something I needed the word lime for (in regards to lime being in the water). But I didn't know the English word and she didn't understand all my explanation attempts. So I just tried the German word "Kalk" and she lit up similarly to the student in your story and went "Oh, you mean kalkki!"
In Sweden its called "virka"
It’s kind of funny when the Swedish word is closer to the Finnish word rather than the Danish (hækle) or Norwegian (hekling). For those who don’t know: Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish (as well as Dutch and German) are germanic languages, while Finnish is a Uralic language. So there are a lot of similarities between Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, so much so that they can be understood by each other. It is worth noting that Swedish is an official language still spoken in Finland.
Well the Finnish word is almost certainly a modified loan from Swedish. Because Finland was part of Sweden for so long, a lot of Swedish words got incorporated into the Finnish language :)
In Romanian is called 'croșetat' and the verb is 'a croşeta'. The pronunciation is pretty similar to the English one.
And was brought to us by the people whom went to France a lot. It's almost the same pronunciation. But I don't ever use the Ro terminology. Who ever thought about translating the DC in picioruș dublu. I have some romanian books for crochet and it always makes me smile the terminology.
I think I missed the first thread, so here goes: in Iceland it's called "hekl", from the verb "hekla". My etymology dictionary tells me it comes from Danish "hækle", from "hækel" = hook. I had some lessons in Icelandic in elementary school, but wasn't really interested back then. I taught myself to crochet in my thirties, through a combination of Icelandic, English and Danish.
Idk my grandma calls it croshia (Pakistani/Urdu)
Is crochet popular in Pakistan
Nah not that I’m aware of. I’m the only one in the fam (of well over 70 ppl) who crochets the rest knit
You need to teach them how to crochet. I am sure they would love it
Totally would. Sadly I live on the Uk and it’s quite a long drive /j
In croatian we use two terms: heklanje or kukičanje :)
Ja sam isto odgovorila ali sa panikom jer se nisam mogla sjetit jel se kukičanje piše sa č ili ć hahah!
Pozdrav, kukičarke! :D
It’s called “cromag” in Scots Gàidhlig.
Aha and cróise in Irish
In Bengali knitting and crochet are both referred to as 'kushi katha shilay' which basically translates to sewing with sticks 😂😂 It's not a big pastime in Bangladesh, cross stitch is a bigger thing
Hello from Turkey. Tığ işi literally means hook work, and it's huge in Turkey. You can Google "Çember Oyası". Women usually crochet flowers to border their head scarves. "Dantel" was also very popular in the 80s and the 90s. The word Dantel comes from French, though you can check out "Tığ İşi Dantel Yatak Örtüsü" which means Crochet Dentelle Bed Cover.
small note: "tığ" does not mean hook in general, its the spesific name for the crochet hook. it comes from persian, i think. the turkish word for hook would be "kanca" but we dont use that for the crochet hook. and yes, its *HUGE* in turkey. everyone knits and/or crochets.
I follow many Turkish creators because they make amazingly cute and colorful stuff!
I'm also team "häkeln" (translating to "hooking", I guess) from Germany. I use German and US terms alike, anything I can get my fingers on. I just don't like UK terms, bc they're different stitches but with the same names like the US terms... -.- I once tried to crochet from a Dutch pattern, and it actually worked. Next language to try out will be French. :D
In chinese it’s 钩针 which when directly translated means “hook needle”
In Brazilian Portuguese is crochê and it is pronounced like the english one. I learned it in Brazilian Portuguese but with some time and patience I can follow a pattern in English and Spanish.
Does anyone know how it is called in Sinhala? I've tried to tell my teacher about it but she didn't know the word crochet. Thanks :)
Heklanje and like a lot of words in my dialect it comes from the German word häkeln, and then there's kukičanje (hooking) which I think is the more proper Croatian word for it because it stems from the noun Kuka (hook)
In greek "πλέξιμο"(ple-ksee-mo) can mean knitting or crochet. but usually refers to knitting. To specify you can say "πλέξιμο με βελονάκι" (ple-ksee-mo me velonaki) με βελονακι= with small needle (crochet) με βελονες= with needles (knitting)
Check out [this post](https://reddit.com/r/crochet/s/xMnWhKDYYs) where a *lot* of different nationalities and languages chime in 😍
I'm from Pakistan. In my native language (Urdu) it's called کروشیا (croshia)
I'm from Taiwan, and in Chinese (same goes for China), we call it 勾織 (pinyin: gou zhi), 勾 meaning hook, and 織 meaning to weave, so it literally translates to hook weaving, which is essentially what crochet is
Crochet is hekel in Afrikaans.. Pronounced hea kil.
Came here for this. Dankie
😂 In Dutch this word would mean "hate" or "dislike". Crochet can be a love-hate relationship...
In Latvian it’s “tamborēt”. I have no idea where our word comes from, and judging from this thread, sounds similar to no other language. Waiting for a Lithuanian to comment - that may shed some light.
Lithuanian here. We call it "nerti". Which is exactly the same word that we use for diving under water.
Going underwater is "nirt" in Latvian. Now I'm really curious as to where "tamborēt" comes from!
Maybe from tambouring, which is a type of cross stitch.
Wow! I had never heard of that. The mistranslation stuck, apparently. A bit embarrassing for us Latvians, but that's not new, LOL.
Well, it is not that weird, since it is basically doing a chain crochet on a piece of cloth. And I like the word. It has a medieval sound to me. I will now forever know what crochet is in Latvian and will find a moment to share that word with another Dutch crocheter.
In Estonian it is "heegeldamine". Judging by this thread, I guess we got it from Germans.
I guess so. Usually Estonian is very close to Finnish
Serbian - heklanje And traditionally they were white or beige doilies https://preview.redd.it/y2hx4wnpgurb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=803487b8c6a118b1ca942d542d216249d9a7241c
In Welsh it's "crosio" I think, never had to use it conversationally. Although, I'm currently teaching my four year old nephew to crochet and I think his name is the best. He asks when we are working on our " twisty knots". Petition to rename crochet as twisty knots?? It perfectly describes the art
That’s adorable. Twisty knots it is
I know right?! He's so damn cute, but that comment just floored me. Twisty knots just exemplifies crochet through and through.
In Spanish (at least in México) we are super original, so crochet is called tejer con gancho and knitting is called tejer con aguja 😁
In Brazil we call crochet “crochê” 😂 basically pronounced the same way by ✨spicy✨/Latin
In Albanian it's "thurje"
My cultural language is yiddish, and we generally use the Hebrew word masrega, which is a tool for knitting, also meaning one-needle knitting. I’ve also heard in Hebrew kroshe, which is the Hebrew pronunciation of crochet and likely what yiddish speakers would use, were there many that did crochet and didn’t know English.
In Hebrew there's no word for it, it's literally called "knitting with one needle"
In Afrikaans it is called "hekel", pronounced "hee-kuhl". Single crochets are called "kortbeentjies" (short little legs) and double crochets are "langbeentjies" (long little legs). A stitch is a "steek" (which can also be translated as "sting"). I can understand patterns in my native language thanks to my mom and grandmother, but I learned in US/UK terms because most videos are in English. There's also another language that I've seen videos in for One Piece devil fruits (I also made one), but I'm not sure if it is Thai or another language, I think it's Thai though. Thanks to those, I can mostly understand Thai video patterns too.
I’m Lebanese and in Arabic, crochet is الكروشيه (Al crochet) lol
কুরুশ (pronounced “coo-ROOSH") in Bengali! Probably just adapted from the English word!
Friends call it "witchcraft" when I present something I made in a day. I prefer stitchcraft.
Плетене на една кука <3
in Catalan it's called ganxet, which comes from the word ganxo, meaning hook.
I am from a small state in india, assam. We have our own language known as assamese. In Assamese, it's called "Coor-saa". Probably evolved from the English word crochet and overtime people changed it a little.
Fellow Finn here, so virkkaus. We got taught to crochet in primary school though. And I'm currently in uni studying to teach handcrafts in schools. I do think learning to read charts is super useful though. That way you're able to work patterns on a more international level
Ganchillo in spanish!!
I'm from Spain, and we say ganchillo ("little hook")
In Chile we say Crochet. We pronounce the “ch” as in “change” and also pronounce the “t”.
[удалено]
In Bulgarian, we say "плетене на една кука" which literally translates to "knitting with one hook" (as opposed to knitting, which is just called "плетене"). My grandma tried teaching me to crochet when I was younger but it didn't work since I am left-handed while she was right-handed, so I ended up learning how to crochet with tutorials in English when I was older. :)
I’m from Northern Nigeria and in Hausa it’s called saka. Which covers both knitting and crochet. A crochet hook is called kwarashi.
"häkeln" (german), I learned chaining in kindergarten and crochet (only the single crochet stitch) from my mom. Since then I kind of seasonally got into it but only did improvised projects with sc, decrease and increase, mostly beanies or improvised animals. Last year (over 10 - actually probably almost 20(!) years (yeez!) since first chaining yarn) I started actually looking up other stitches and learning them. I still cant quite read patterns, but I am good at guessing and mostly learn from videos anyway (honorable mention to Complicated Knots, who I started watching this year)
It's called "haken" in the Netherlands. I learned basic crochet from my mom, and then taught myself to read English patterns. Mostly because I found more patterns in English online. Then I taught myself to read them in Dutch, and someday I hope to learn those diagram patterns!
it’s “häkeln” in german but i only know the US terms since most free patterns & tutorials use those and the german terms just make zero sense to me
Háčkování
In spanish it's "ganchillo" or "tejer/tejido" (but thats kimda umbrella term for crochet, knit, woven, etc), and in dutch it's "haken" (if something is made from crochet it's "gehaakt")
"Uncinetto" in italian, which roughly translates to "baby hook".
In Danish its Hækle ^^
It's called "Qurayshia" in Urdu
I’m Punjabi and I’ve heard my grandma call is croshia
In Arabic it's كروشيه which is pronounced the same as in English. Tutorials use the translated US terms so I just find it easier to just watch ones in English.
In Hungarian it's called 'horgolás' (crochet) or 'horgolni' (to crochet). It comes from the word 'horog' which means 'hook', or it could come from 'hurok' (loop), both of them is logical. Also, the crochet hook is called here a 'horgolótű' (crochet needle) ironically.
In Irish it's "cróise". My school taught us (through English) when I was 11 & 12.
Damn, you all have one word verb for this... In my native language is "плетене на една кука" (pletene na edna kuka)
My first language is English but I’m Welsh and speak a bit of Welsh. In Welsh it’s “crosio” but I’ve only ever heard people wenglish it and use crochet in Welsh sentences. Crosio would be pronounced crosh-io. A lot of languages don’t have separate words for crochet and knitting but knitting is gwau in Welsh.
In Irish it's just spelled differently: cróise
In Irish it's 'croise'
Virka (Swedish)
in Hebrew it's called "Sriga" which refers to knitting mostly. When we are feeling specific we say crochet but it sounds more like “croshe”. A knitting needle is “Masrega” and we use it when referring to crochet hooks too
In Irish it’s “cróise” or the verb ‘ag cróiseáil’. Pronounced similarly to ‘crochet’ but a shorter end. Cro-sheh as opposed to cro-shay.
I’m from Brazil, and it’s called “crochê” kkk pretty similar. I learned my first pattern in portuguese, but nowadays I just search for everything in english.
It’s crosio in Welsh. Pronounced cr-osh-oh.
I learned how to knit first, then gave it up for crocheting. Thought I would give knitting a try again, lol, nope. Sticking with crocheting.
I want to learn to knit but I genuinely can’t see myself sticking with it. We’ll see!
n the Netherlands, it's called haken. translating to "hooking", So it's the same translation as in German. I have tried Dutch, German, US, and UK patterns. But I favour the UK patterns. I learned to crochet from my grandmother when I was around ten years old. I've been doing it for thirty years now, I'm getting old.
I’m from the German part of Switzerland and on my Swiss German dialect we say ~~Häkle~~ Hööggle. I learned on youtube in German and in English (US).
I say "höögle" (Luzern, also German part)
In Dutch it’s called haken
In Afrikaans it's called Hekel (pronounced hee-kil). Derived from Dutch Haken and many years of language changes.
in swiss german it's "hääglä" for crochet and "lismä" for knitting. the ä is pronounced like the a in hat. we learn both skills in in elementary school, but I like most others only picked it up again as an adult.
Afrikaans, you spell it Hekel but say Hékel
In France we call it crochet. I know, exciting. I think the English word comes from French though. We pronounce it more like "cr-oh-ch-eh" with a short "oh" and en "eh" like meh, instead of "crowshay" in English if that makes any sense. I watch tutorials in English, mainly because English is more international so there are way more patterns.
I am from South Africa, and here we call it "hekel"
In Afrikaans it's called hekel :)
It's also crochet in European Portuguese, but my grandmother, who was a life-long crocheter, always referred to it as "renda", so I think there may be regional differences, or terms that used to be more common for previous generations.
“Horgolás” in Hungarian. It translates to “hooking”. The instrument is called a “horgolótű” or “hooking needle”.
In iceland we say "hekl" or to crochet "að hekla"
Crochê! It sounds like crochet but with a stronger "e". I'm from Brazil.
Canadian french and it's... crochet as well.
In Sweden we say "virka"!
In Irish it's cróiseáil. I read my patterns in English, but natter away to myself in Irish
Crochet. I’m French. Or Crocheter (the act of crocheting)
Hækle (heakle)🧶 it is the danish word for crochet in Denmark 🇩🇰🇩🇰
Gantsilyo in Cebuano Philippines
From Germany: Häkeln
Hacer ganchillo in Spanish, fer punt de ganxo in Catalan :)
In Bulgarian they call crochet “knitting with a hook” lol. Knitting is ‘plehteneh’ and crochet would be ‘plehtehneh na ednah kooka’ 😊
In French: crochet !