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The writing on a shop or a street sign is one of the surest country clues, once you know which letters to look for. This page puts the writing of 38 countries side by side, from Asian scripts to Cyrillic and Latin letters with extras, each on a real sign, then shows the look-alikes people mix up and the letter or word that tells them apart.
Test yourself: play Language Spotter →Asia has many scripts of its own. Each card shows one sign per country: look at the shapes, whether letters hang from a line, and whether loops or circles appear.
Japan Japanese mixes Chinese characters with two simple alphabets: rounded hiragana like の, し and り, and angular katakana like カ and ン. Korean Hangul builds each syllable as a block of circles and lines, like ㅇ and ㄱ. Taiwan writes Traditional Chinese characters only: no kana, no circles.
Thailand Thai letters start with a small loop, with vowel marks above and below the line and no spaces between words. Lao looks like Thai, but rounder and simpler, with fewer loops and fewer tall marks. Khmer is the most ornate: curly letters with little hats and more letters stacked below the line.
India India and Nepal both write Devanagari: letters hang from a straight line along the top. Bengali has a top line too, but many letters have a triangle hanging below it. Sinhala in Sri Lanka is round and curly with no top line, often beside Tamil and English.
Some countries have an alphabet nobody else uses; others share Cyrillic and differ by a letter or two. Learn the one letter that only each country writes.
Israel Both read right to left. Hebrew letters are square and blocky, and each stands on its own. Arabic letters flow and join together, with dots above and below. Israeli road signs often show Hebrew, Arabic and English; in the UAE, signs nearly always add English.
Greece 
Russia Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia and Mongolia all write Cyrillic. Look for the letter only one of them uses: ы and э in Russian, ъ inside words in Bulgarian, ђ and ћ in Serbian, ѓ and ќ in Macedonian, ө and ү in Mongolian.
Most of Europe writes in Latin letters, but almost every language adds its own: marks on the letters, extra letters and typical letter pairs.
Sweden 
Finland 
Poland Polish has ł, ą, ę and ż, and pairs like sz and cz. Czech has ř, ě and ů. Slovak has ä, ô and ľ instead. Hungarian has ő and ű with double accents, and pairs like gy, sz and zs.
Croatia 
Germany German adds ä, ö and ü, and the special ß. Portuguese has ã and õ with a tilde, ç, and many words ending in -ção.
These pairs write almost the same way. Each one shows a real sign from both countries side by side, and the letter or word that separates them.
Japan vs 
TaiwanHow to tell Both use Chinese characters. Japanese mixes them with kana: look for small, simple characters like の, し or り. Taiwan writes only Chinese characters, dense and complex, with no kana.
Thailand vs 
LaosHow to tell Lao looks like Thai, but its letters are rounder and simpler, with fewer loops and fewer tall marks above the line. Thai letters each start with a small loop.
India vs 
BangladeshHow to tell Both hang their letters from a line along the top. Bengali has many letters with a triangle under the line, like ব and র; Hindi's Devanagari letters are straighter, with more upright strokes.
Israel vs 
United Arab EmiratesHow to tell Both read right to left. Hebrew letters are square and stand apart; Arabic letters join into flowing words with dots above and below. Israeli road signs often carry both, with Hebrew on top.
Georgia vs 
ArmeniaHow to tell Both have alphabets of their own. Georgian is round and curly, with no capital letters. Armenian is made of arches and hooks, and it has capitals, which often look like Latin letters.
Russia vs 
BulgariaHow to tell Both write Cyrillic. ы and э mean Russian; Bulgarian has neither. Bulgarian uses ъ as a vowel in the middle of words, like път.
Serbia vs 
North MacedoniaHow to tell Both share љ, њ, џ and ј. Serbian has ђ and ћ; Macedonian has ѓ, ќ and ѕ. Serbia also writes in Latin letters, often on the same sign, like Београд / Beograd.
Croatia vs SerbiaHow to tell Serbia also writes in Latin letters, with the same č, ć, š, ž and đ as Croatian. Look at the words: Croatian often has ije where Serbian has e, as in mlijeko and mleko. Any Cyrillic on the sign means Serbia.
Czech Republic vs 
SlovakiaHow to tell Close cousins. ř, ě and ů mean Czech; ä, ô and ľ mean Slovak. Common words differ too: a street is ulice in Czech and ulica in Slovak.
Sweden vs 
NorwayHow to tell Neighbours with different extra letters: ä and ö in Swedish, æ and ø in Norwegian. The town centre is Centrum in Swedish and Sentrum in Norwegian.
Norway vs 
DenmarkHow to tell The same letters, æ, ø and å, so read the words. Norwegian streets are vei and gate, Danish ones vej and gade. Norwegian writes Sentrum where Danish writes Centrum.
Finland vs 
EstoniaHow to tell Both have ä, ö and double letters. Estonian adds õ and ü. Finnish signs often repeat the name in Swedish, like Keskusta / Centrum. An airport is lentoasema in Finnish and lennujaam in Estonian.
Lithuania vs 
LatviaHow to tell Baltic neighbours with different marks. Lithuanian has ė and tails under vowels: ą, ę, į, ų. Latvian puts lines over long vowels, ā, ē, ī, ū, and commas under ķ, ļ, ņ and ģ.
Look for ы and э: they are Russian and never used in Bulgarian. Bulgarian uses ъ as a vowel inside words, like път.
Czech has ř, ě and ů; Slovak has ä, ô and ľ instead. A street is ulice in Czech and ulica in Slovak.
Japanese mixes Chinese characters with kana, small simple characters like の and し. Chinese, as written in Taiwan, uses only characters.
The letters are the same, so read the words: vei and gate are Norwegian, vej and gade Danish. Norwegian writes Sentrum, Danish Centrum.
In Language Spotter: Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia and Mongolia. Serbia also writes in Latin letters, often on the same sign.
