You’ll recognize it as the root of the English word erotic Έρωτας (Erotas) (known as Έρως (Eros) in Ancient Greek): This refers only to romantic love or courtship.Greek famously has four main words for love: Others have many more, and they’re as integral to the culture as all the different Japanese words for “you” are to Japanese culture. Some languages have just one or two words, like English. Let’s take a look at how some languages express the idea of love. The truth is, the more languages you learn, the more you see the benefit of having various ways to refer to “love”. Is the English language limited by not putting much value on this difference? Monolingual English speakers would probably say no, but that’s because they don’t have anything to compare it to. In some languages, the difference is very important. In English, the word “love” has become diluted so that it can be used in place of “like”. Why should the concept of romantic love (“I love my husband/wife”) use the same word as parental love (“I love my mother”), or love of an object?
This is as baffling to some students of English as all the different forms of “you” are to people learning Japanese. No matter what kind of love we’re talking about in English, we can use one single word for it: “love”. But when it comes to the word “love” itself, this one word can express all of these concepts and more.Ĭonsider the following English sentences: What do you suppose this says about those cultures?Įnglish has a few different words for different kinds of love, including fondness, affection, and infatuation (though one could argue that not all of these are actually types of love). Likewise, there are many languages that have several different ways to express the concept of love. They’re integral to Japanese culture, and they give foreigners valuable insight into an intangible aspect of that culture, namely that status and relationships are very important in Japan. There are even different ways to address a suspected criminal depending on whether they’ve just been accused, are on trial, or have been convicted.ĭo all these different words for “you” exist just to annoy foreigners learning Japanese? Of course not. There are different ways of addressing men and women, immediate superiors, higher superiors, inferior colleagues, male children, female children, your boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse. There are polite forms, very polite forms, impolite forms and downright rude forms.
The Japanese language has dozens of ways to say “you”. There are more words for “love” than there are languages in the world. I made this video guide to help you get started: There are so many different ways to say “I love you” and to share the love. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
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