"I love you" in all the languages of the world!

[Mameha]

This may be a simple question, but since we around Christmas (i couldn't wait until Valentine's day!) i think it's good to open an happy topic!

How do you say "i love you", or how do you express love in your language? Not only to your lovers, but even your relatives, parents, friends!

In Italian "I love you" can be translated in 2 ways:

"Ti amo" is the "I love you" that you say generally to your boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband but you can say it maybe to your son or daughter too because it is a great expression of love.

"Ti voglio bene" is what you say generally to people like friends, parents, relatives or people you love in general.

What about you?  Let's spread the love!

 

[atanas.velikov]

Obicham te in Bulgarian  It's the romantic way and also the way you'd say to your friends. 

In Italian what would you say to a Romantic partner but not one that you want to declare your love for? 

[Mameha]

1 hour ago, atanas.velikov said:

Obicham te in Bulgarian  It's the romantic way and also the way you'd say to your friends. 

In Italian what would you say to a Romantic partner but not one that you want to declare your love for? 

I'm sorry if i am not so good at it but how do i pronounce "Obicham"? I mean, the CH is like "Chest" or like a K?

Anyway i'm not sure what you mean, it depends on what you want to say to him/her i guess

[shadejb]

It's a bit complicated in Vietnamese. "Love" is translated to "yêu", but "I" and "you" will vary depends on who you're talking to, or what the relationship is.

For lovers, you would probably use "Anh yêu em" (male) and reverse for female.

For parents, friends, you can just say their name or their salutation (of which there are 20+ in our language). But generally, the saying for lovers are most common. We are a shy country haha.

[waynelam8]

In Chinese 我愛你

pronunciation is wo ai ni

[lushlala]

@Mameha......I think this is a very good sentiment, let's spread a little Christmas cheer and love!

In Botswana there's a universal phrase to express love, which cuts across the board, and does not distinguish between lovers, partners, family or friends. Basically we have just one way of saying I love you/I like you as below:

"Ke a go rata"

I think that's why some local guys will come right out and say I love you in English when they're trying to chat you up, freaking some girls out in the process. Some of these poor guys don't know what they've done to put the girls off.

 

[linguaholic]

This is a lovely thread, however I would like to point out that we had an almost similar thread back in 2013 :=) Please have a look here for some more love. 

 

http://linguaholic.com/topic/329-i-love-you-in-your-native-language/

[宇崎ちゃん]

Sounds more like a topic that should be created mid-February though.

• Polish: Kocham cię.
• Dutch: Ik hou/houd van je/jou.*
• English: I love you.
• Japanese: 愛します。 (Ai shimasu.)
• German: Ich liebe dich.
• American: i luv u (it's a joke, silly!)

 

Notes regarding the asterisk (*):

1. "hou" for spoken Dutch and "houd" for written Dutch.
2. "je" and "jou" have the same meaning, so it's used interchangeably.
3. "u" is the polite version of "je" and "jou" and it's most likely the one you will learn while learning Dutch, but using "u" in "I love you" makes it sound either like you don't know the person you love, or it'll sound like you love the person in question for business reasons.

[Mameha]

@shadejb wow i didn't know that in Vietnam you are so shy xD but it's nice in some ways

@Blaveloper Yep it's a topic for mid February but i think that i wanted to talk about love in general, not only for partners  and i think it will last til February 
Anyway i have a few questions: how do i pronounce the Polish and Dutch ones? And about Japanese... i thought it was "Aishiteru", what is the difference between this and "ai shimasu"?

@lushlala when i search on the internet i always find how to say "i love you" in common languages, so it is interesting to know how to say it in your language, wich is less common! I like it

[pesic87]

In my native language Serbian, you say 'I love you' as 'Volim te'.

'volim' is a verb coming from the infinitive 'voleti', meaning 'to love';

'te' is a pronoun, meaning 'you'.

In case you want to say 'I love you' to many people in the group, you should say 'Volim vas', here 'vas' being a pronoun for the the second person plural, 'you'.

I hope I helped.

[宇崎ちゃん]

1 hour ago, Mameha said:

Anyway i have a few questions: how do i pronounce the Polish and Dutch ones? And about Japanese... i thought it was "Aishiteru", what is the difference between this and "ai shimasu"?

It's hard for me to re-produce Italian sounds while not knowing any Italian.
A simple way around that would be to go to Google Translate, paste the Dutch and Polish ones in the text field and click the following icon:

I just tried both and I can say they are both accurate.

As for the "aishiteru" vs "ai shimasu" part:
"ai" = love (noun).
"suru" = "to do" (dictionary form).
"shimasu" = "to do" (polite form).
"shite" = "do (it)" (te-form, commonly used as a command).
"shiteiru" = "doing" (continuously).
"shiteimasu" = "doing" (continuously, polite).

I don't think there is a "shiteru" form though.

So in other words, the difference between "ai suru"/"ai shimasu" and "aishiteiru"/"ai shiteimasu" would be that the latter one is more like "I'm loving you" while the primer one would be more like "I love you".

[Mameha]

@Blaveloper I meant how do i pronounce those 2 in your language, not in Italian, obviously it's better to pronounce something in the native way...

Btw the thing about Japanese is really interesting because it's something i was wondering since a long time, i didn't really know the fact that "Aishiteru" is "I'm loving you", so thank you for this 

[宇崎ちゃん]

You don't need to translate from Polish or Dutch, just paste it there and click the audio icon.

Once again, "aishiteru" doesn't exist. Use "aishiteiru" (with an extra "i" before "ru") instead.

Edit: scrap that, the second part was bullshit.

[lushlala]

2 hours ago, Mameha said:

@shadejb wow i didn't know that in Vietnam you are so shy xD but it's nice in some ways

@Blaveloper Yep it's a topic for mid February but i think that i wanted to talk about love in general, not only for partners  and i think it will last til February 
Anyway i have a few questions: how do i pronounce the Polish and Dutch ones? And about Japanese... i thought it was "Aishiteru", what is the difference between this and "ai shimasu"?

@lushlala when i search on the internet i always find how to say "i love you" in common languages, so it is interesting to know how to say it in your language, wich is less common! I like it

Yes, you're right; Setswana is a much lesser spoken and known language compared to most. I'm glad you you like it when you learn of ways to say different things in my language  Sadly, I don't think it's the most romantic languages out there, certainly not as romantic and sexy as Italian. We say 'ke go rata' to everyone, regardless of the typesof relationship, as long as we care for and love that person. There's no special way of putting it in a romantic setting

I also agree with you on this discussion being fitting for this time of year, as it's about spreading a little bit of love during time of the year, a time for giving and receiving, but mainly giving  I don't see it as being more suited to February, as it's about all types of love, not just of the romantic variety. At least that's how I personally understood it, and I really rather like it!

[kurdapia]

In Filipino I love you can be expressed like:

Mahal Kita -- Mahal means love Kita means You. It does not require the use of the pronoun I. This phrase can be used in general to signify love

Iniibig kita -- it means the same as I love you but this is intended for the ones you are romantically attached to. You do not say iniibig kita to your parents or friends 

[Mameha]

3 hours ago, lushlala said:

Yes, you're right; Setswana is a much lesser spoken and known language compared to most. I'm glad you you like it when you learn of ways to say different things in my language  Sadly, I don't think it's the most romantic languages out there, certainly not as romantic and sexy as Italian. We say 'ke go rata' to everyone, regardless of the typesof relationship, as long as we care for and love that person. There's no special way of putting it in a romantic setting

I also agree with you on this discussion being fitting for this time of year, as it's about spreading a little bit of love during time of the year, a time for giving and receiving, but mainly giving  I don't see it as being more suited to February, as it's about all types of love, not just of the romantic variety. At least that's how I personally understood it, and I really rather like it!

You actually got it! That's what i meant by doing this topic  All types of love, not only the Romantic one. Anyway even if your language isn't the most romantic, it's interesting to know something about less spoken languages, every language has its own charm and i find it beautiful to know about not common languages too 

@kurdapia Oh, i was waiting for the Filipino one! So it's like Italian, you have a way to say I love you to a partner and a way to say it to other people  

[Richard.H]

Eng (:P): I love you

Japanese (depends on polite you wanna be): 愛してる (ai shiteru)(informal, something you might actually use with your lover)

Chinese (somebody already posted this, so let me do it in Simplified Chinese): 我爱你 (wo ai ni)

Korean: 사랑 해요 (salang haeyo)

Czech: Miluji tě

 

On 12/11/2015, 1:08:00, Blaveloper said:

As for the "aishiteru" vs "ai shimasu" part:
"ai" = love (noun).
"suru" = "to do" (dictionary form).
"shimasu" = "to do" (polite form).
"shite" = "do (it)" (te-form, commonly used as a command).
"shiteiru" = "doing" (continuously).
"shiteimasu" = "doing" (continuously, polite).

I don't think there is a "shiteru" form though.

So in other words, the difference between "ai suru"/"ai shimasu" and "aishiteiru"/"ai shiteimasu" would be that the latter one is more like "I'm loving you" while the primer one would be more like "I love you".

Great job breaking it down!

I would just add that 愛してる does indeed exist, but it's slang.

[宇崎ちゃん]

I didn't know you could use it as a slang word though.
Much like I recently found out that "っす" is a slang of "です".

[atanas.velikov]

On 12/11/2015, 1:08:14, Mameha said:

I'm sorry if i am not so good at it but how do i pronounce "Obicham"? I mean, the CH is like "Chest" or like a K?

Anyway i'm not sure what you mean, it depends on what you want to say to him/her i guess

Sorry - it's pronounced ch as in chest  I'm not sure - I don't want to say I love but I want to say something more than I like you

[Mameha]

17 minutes ago, atanas.velikov said:

Sorry - it's pronounced ch as in chest  I'm not sure - I don't want to say I love but I want to say something more than I like you

"I like you" is "Mi piaci", but you can even say "Tengo molto a te" that is like "i really care about you" , it is a great demonstration of affection to that person, you are saying that this person is important to you. 

You can obviously say "ti voglio bene" instead of "Ti amo", both means "i love you" but "Ti voglio bene" is i love you in a friendly way  

You can even say (always in friendly ways):

"Ti voglio davvero bene" that is "I truly love you" 

"Ti voglio molto/tanto bene" that is "I love you a lot"

"Molto" and "Tanto" both means "a lot/much"

I hope this was helpful

[kurdapia]

On 12/12/2015, 12:08:50, Mameha said:

 

@kurdapia Oh, i was waiting for the Filipino one! So it's like Italian, you have a way to say I love you to a partner and a way to say it to other people  

Oh I see I was not aware that Italian has the same way  of saying I love you. I love reading about certain terms that has certain degree of affection to them while other languages are pretty straight forward. That is the beauty of having your own language right? In Filipino when you say Gusto Kita it is almost similar to saying I like you but in an intense way which would somehow may lead to love. There is a thin line really

 

[Mameha]

@kurdapia This is why languages are so charming! I opened this topic because i found interesting how people express their affection and feelings in their languages. Some words can have a deep meaning or not, in general this is a delicate topic and i think it's beautiful to see differents culture's habits when it comes to love

[czarina84]

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2015‎ ‎3‎:‎20‎:‎27‎, Mameha said:

This may be a simple question, but since we around Christmas (i couldn't wait until Valentine's day!) i think it's good to open an happy topic!

How do you say "i love you", or how do you express love in your language? Not only to your lovers, but even your relatives, parents, friends!

In Italian "I love you" can be translated in 2 ways:

"Ti amo" is the "I love you" that you say generally to your boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband but you can say it maybe to your son or daughter too because it is a great expression of love.

"Ti voglio bene" is what you say generally to people like friends, parents, relatives or people you love in general.

What about you?  Let's spread the love!

 

In Italian, you don't pronounce "g", correct?  So would "voglio" be pronounced "vo-leo"?  Sorry for the English phonetic pronunciation.  I didn't know any other way to ask it. 

[Mameha]

9 minutes ago, czarina84 said:

In Italian, you don't pronounce "g", correct?  So would "voglio" be pronounced "vo-leo"?  Sorry for the English phonetic pronunciation.  I didn't know any other way to ask it. 

Yes, we don't pronunce a guttural "g", in this case it is near a "L" (so "gl") but there are some exeptions, for exemple if it is in the start of a word it is guttural, for exemple the word "Glicemia" (glycemia), wich is pronounced as in english.

Voglio's pronunciation is similar to words like "million" but more marked..you should listen to it

[Chris_A]

As German has already been mentioned in this topic, I`ll just add Romanian and Hungarian to the list.

Romanian: Te iubesc or Te iubesc mult (If you add that you love somebody much)

Hungarian: Szeretlek or Nagyon szeretlek (same for Hungarian)