How to Say “I Love You” When the Language Doesn’t Exist

[nvahalik]

> The phrase most directly means “(I) am loving (you),” as if to convey that love is an active labor, not just an amorphous feeling tossed between two parties.

I really connect with this.

In the west, love seems to be this thing you cannot control. It can come upon you suddenly and leave you just as suddenly. In that context, "love" is a scary thing. It seems to have a mind of it's own. Truly, I don't believe that it's love at all, but usually either lust or infatuation in disguise.

I believe whole heartedly that "love" is always an act. You can say you "love" someone while actively doing things that prove you do not love them. Likewise, you can actively show someone love without saying anything to them. True love is a controlled action and is accompanied by feelings (at least at times), but it does not have to be.

Perhaps the Japanese got this completely right.

[JdeBP]

> In the west

The people in this very discussion pointing out differences and difficulties translating between English and French, Spanish, and (Ancient) Greek should disabuse one of the notion that this is some "Western" thing.

[pertymcpert]

I can disprove that with a counterexample. I love my wife. It's a feeling I have within my chest, but it's not infatuation which fades after a few months. It really is an amorphous feeling that's deeply rooted.

And yes that might make it scary, but that's the reality.

[ReverseCold]

> Perhaps the Japanese got this completely right.

You can't just say that and then not elaborate :)

Edit: Oops, didn't read the article.

[dkulchenko]

Russian is the same way.

You can translate "I love you" linguistically, but it doesn't really make sense to say - people express it through actions rather than words. It's definitely an interesting (and rather significant) difference in Western culture that grants the 3 words such importance.

[coffeemug]

What do you mean? It absolutely makes sense to say (я тебя люблю). People tend to say it less frequently because the communists attempted to eradicate display of superfluous emotions by pretending they don't exist, but if you go back to the classics the characters talk about love all the time.

[ekianjo]

Poor article - of course it exists. The right answer is at the end, you say 大好き usually in Japanese, nobody uses 愛してる, its too formal and not commonly used.

and usually the proper way to say it is X　のことが好きです which is difficult to translate but it's a subtle nuance referring to the substance of the person instead of just the person.

[heroprotagonist]

I wonder if Google's Pixel Buds will ever accidentally trigger a romance.

のことが好きです == "I like that":

https://translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E3%81%AE%E3%81%93%E3%81...

This would make for a rather unlikely, but interesting, meet-cute.

[jpamata]

I think what the article addresses is the literal translation for "I love you" in Japanese, not the idiomatic translation.

[DoreenMichele]

In French, Je t'aime means both I love you and I like you.

[ekianjo]

No, not really in French you make the distinction by adding "bien" at the end to clarify that it's liking and not love.

[gumby]

Oais, mais on dit aussi « Je t'adore »

[jghjg]

I have moved to France, and as a spanish speaker with "te amo" " te quiero" y "Me gustas (I like you)" I find french lacking some words.

I don't think Je t'aime bien its the same as Me gustas and definitely je t'adore doesn't convey the same emotions as te quiero

[natecavanaugh]

Something else I've recently found out from an ex, I always thought `te quiero` (in Spanish) meant "I love you", but really means something like "I feel fondness for you" (and can be used between family and close friends), but `te amo` means "I love you". First time she told me, I almost broke down in tears.

It's amazing how much language affects how we relate.

Edit: after learning the difference, and because she wasn't ready to say it, even though I was, and not wanting to make her uncomfortable, I invented `te quieramo` as a nice substitute. She seemed to enjoy that :)

[glandium]

I've always found the subtle variations in roman languages to be interesting. At least in those I know. In spanish, you have "te quiero", from the verb "querer", which also means want. And "te amo", from the verb "amar", which has the same root as the french "aimer" or the italian "amare", used, respectively in "je t'aime" and "ti amo". I don't know about italian, but in french, "aimer" has both the meaning of "querer" and "amar" depending how you use it. Then, you have catalan, which uses "estimar" in "t'estimo", which also is used with both meanings and has the same root as the english esteem.

[senozhatsky]

In Belarusian language we have two different "love" words. There is one "love" [кахаю - ka-ha-you] for "I love [ka-ha-you] you / her / him", and there is another one which we use in any other case, like "I love English language". The latter cannot be used when you express your feelings for another person. Oddly enough, I don't think we use ka-ha-you in "I love myself" that often, most likely there will be the same "love" word as in "I love English language".

-ss

[DoofusOfDeath]

The book, "The Five Love Languages" answers the question extremely well. Anyone planning to get married should consider it mandatory reading.

[mhd]

In the Bavarian dialect, you can't say "I love you" without switching out to proper German. We do have at least two words for peeing, though.

[gumby]

I found that after almost 25 years I'd forgotten how to be romantic in English. Despite speaking English also all that time, and watching plenty of rom-coms and the like, I just didn't know how any more.

[modzu]

whorf sapir, lets go

[mmphosis]

qaparHa'qu'

[paranoidrobot]

That's expressing the opposite of hate, however. Which isn't necessarily love.

In Klingon, Love would be better expressed through actions.

In this way, Klingon has the same issue as Japanese.