One of the coolest things about traveling the world is learning a little bit of the local language.
It’s amazing how much you can learn about a culture based on how they express themselves. There’s always an expression or a word that doesn’t exist in other languages, or seems special based on the collective mentality of that particular culture. It’s amazing to think that through all of the years, wars, and our existence as human beings – one thing remains, our method of communicating using language and our ability to love.
Not long ago I started to wonder, how do people say ‘I love you’ around the world? I already knew it in French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Korean, and English of course, but what about the other languages of the world?
So here it is, after hours upon hours of searching and research, this is how to say I love you in different languages – to be exact the 100 most spoken languages in the world!
Here are the languages in order of how many people speak them, how you say ‘I love you,’ and where it is spoken:
1. Mandarin: Wǒ ài nǐ
Where it’s spoken: China, Taiwan, Singapore
2. Spanish: te amo, te quiero
Where it’s spoken: Hispanic America, Spain, United States, Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, Pacific islands
3. English: I love you
Where it’s spoken: Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, Singapore, Philippines
4. Hindi: main tumse pyar karta hoon
Where it’s spoken: India, Fiji, Nepal
5. Arabic: ahabak
Where it’s spoken: North Africa, Western Asia (Middle East), East Africa
6. Portuguese: eu te amo
Where it’s spoken: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste
7. Bengali: Āmi tōmāẏa bhālōbāsi
Where it’s spoken: Bangladesh, West Bengal (India), Tripura (India), Assam (India)
8. Russian: ya lyublyu tebya
Where it’s spoken: Russia, former Republics of the Soviet Union, Mongolia
9. Japanese: watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu
Where it’s spoken: Japan
10. Punjabi: maiṁ tuhānū pi’āra karadā hāṁ
Where it’s spoken: Punjab region (India, Pakistan)
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The next most spoken language is German, but ‘I love you’ in auf Deutsche has several layers, and can be a lot more specific. For example, to tell someone you love for them more in an ‘I care for you’ kind of way, you would use ‘Ich habe dich gerne’.
Next is ‘Ich hab dich lieb’, which is kind of like, ‘I have love for…
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