We say “I love you” to a friend, relative, or lover and the meaning of of the word “love” in each case is a bit different. It’s similar, but saying it to a friend or a lover means different things.
Sometimes we add qualifiers to be more specific about the type of love. We may tell a friend “I love you like a brother” to indicate that the love is more like what is felt for a relative than just a friend. To a lover we might say “I’m so in love with you” at the beginning of the relationship to highlight the intimate nature of the love, and then eventually say “I love you but I’m not in love with you” at the end of the relationship when the love is more like that for a friend.
Are there languages which have distinctive words for these different meanings of the word love when said to a friend, relative or lover?
Sure. Probably Greek is the epitome here with the “4 Loves”. Eros, or physical love from which comes our word erotic; agape, or spiritual love which if you were at all involved with a teen church youth group you probably went to at least one agape dinner; philia, or mental love; and storge which is the sort of love a parent may have for a child or between colleagues or friends or a pet and their owner.
My understanding is that for most spanish speakers, te quiero (lit. I want you) is appropriate to say to parents, offspring, friends and relations and it does not carry any connotations of lust, while te amo (I love you) is pretty much reserved only for one’s lover or spouse and even then, most speakers will say te quiero unless the situation calls for something a bit more sexy.
Greek, mentioned above, is probably the best example I can think of. French (as far as I know, at least) uses aimer for everything from liking a book to romantic love, modified in some cases with adverbs to clarify the meaning. Japanese has ai and koi (and the loan rabu, which is mainly used in other loans like rabu retaa ‘love letter’), with ai also being used in the general sense of liking something (and used as a root in the terms for maternal love, philanthropy, etc.) and koi specifically referring to romantic love. There are other differences between the two, though, which I’ll leave for someone with a better grasp on the language to describe. There’s also suki, which is usually translated as ‘like’ but also appears in the phrase corresponding to English ‘I love you’.
Afrikaans has lief and bemin. You can use the former for casual, familial and romantic love, the latter is only used for romantic love.
Ek is lief vir rugby I love rugby Ek is lief vir my ma I love my mom Ek is lief vir jou I love you Ek bemin jou I love you, but in a (big-R) Romantic sense.
The latter form is slightly archaic, and so is the realm more of poetry and song, nowadays. It’s actually more preserved in the words minaar and beminde (lover & beloved) which don’t have easy lief equivalents - geliefde (beloved) is IME used in the religious "beloved’ sense, liefhebber (love-haver) is strictly a connoisseur/fan/enthusiast of something, not a romantic thing.
Ancient Greek is basically the textbook example of this, as others have mentioned. Any Modern Greek speakers care to mention whether or not it’s still the same?
Depends on dialect, but in general it’s correct. Some dialects use amar in the general sense, and in fact it’s used in this sense in the first line in a set of reading books used in many Hispanic countries, the “cartilla Anaya” (mi mamá me ama, mommy loves me); some people overthink things and claim that querer is the one that should be sexual, because what it literally means is “I want you”. Gustar (officially “like”) can also be used in the sense of romantic-love, but when you want to… uhm… avoid sounding too overwhelming, whereas the same for friendship-love would, at least in my dialect, be caer bien.
I don’t know anything about the Polish language.
And, apparently, neither did President Jimmy Carter’s translator .
When Carter spoke of Poland’s love of freedom, it got translated to the audience using the wrong word for love, which has sexual connotations.
So Polish must have at least two words for “love”.
There are some distinctions in German. I have never heard “Ich liebe dich” (“I love you”) used in a non-romantic sense except in quite badly dubbed American movies (and I always want to punch someone in the face when I hear a child say to their parent character “Ich liebe Dich”, followed by “Ich liebe dich auch” (“I love you too”) in a movie. Gahh). Instead, a child would say to their parent (or a friend to a friend) “Ich habe dich lieb” or “Ich habe dich gern”. Then there’s “Ich mag dich” (infinitive: “mögen”) which is a straightforward translation of “I like you”.
Yeah, apparently the Hispanic Studies department had a number of laughs at the expense of students like me who were never told by their high school spanish teachers that it’s not correct to say “me gusta” in reference to friends unless you meant that you found them sexually attractive. Quite a few red faces that day in class.
“Ai” - means ‘love,’ just like English - can be as romantic or non-romantic as you want it to convey.
*“Ten” *- ‘be fond of,’ or ‘cherish,’ a non-romantic word used in the sense of an elder family member such as grandparents, loving a young family member such as grandchildren.
It’s the opposite. “Quiero” in that case does not indicate desire, it’s a word with two different meanings. My daughter is completely bilingual (actually she speaks 3 languages), but English is her mother’s tongue. She says “te amo” to all our family. Sounds a bit off to my ears, but nothing technically wrong with it, and I am not going to explain the difference to her yet.
I know Danish has an “I am falling in love with you” and an “I love you” one. At least the hubby said so 20 odd years ago when we were dating.
