Ways to Say Love in Different Languages: From Spanish "Amor" to Vietnamese "Yêu"

Love is a universal feeling, but it’s not a universal word. Naturally, each language has their own way of translating love, and they're not all as simple as just saying you love someone. It's kinda interesting, when you start peeking at the details of what's actually being said.

This article will be short and sweet—we'll look at the things people say when they talk about love in ten different languages, and then be on our way.

On the off chance that you're here for a specific language:

❤️ A note about English speakers' love for the word "love"

Before we jump into the translations, we need to ask ourselves an important question:

Alright, that was dumb.

But, really, though.

Consider this:

It's not that Mandarin or Russian doesn't have a word for "heavy"—they do—they just don't use that word to describe getting violently excessive amounts of rain. They have the same idea, but they express it with different words.

If you're not convinced, let's look at this from a different direction.

While I love my mom, I also love:

Speakers of other languages might look at that list of things and be confused: if "love" refers to the emotion I feel toward my mother, how could the same word possibly be used to refer to the way you feel about a cheap inanimate object?

Basically, we're about to give you words for love in a bunch of languages... but you should know that this is just a start. Some languages may indeed have a word for love, but don't use it in all the same situations we do in English.

As such:

Anyway, there's my soapbox!

Let's get to the love.

💖 How to say love in different languages

Ten, to be specific.

1. Love in Cantonese — 愛 (oi3)

📌 Nuance: Used for deep love but less common in everyday speech.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: Cantonese speakers often express love indirectly through actions or with less intense phrases like 我鍾意你 (ngo5 zung1 ji3 nei5, "I like you") .

2. Love in Mandarin Chinese – 爱 (ài)

📌 Nuance: Strong romantic love, but many Chinese speakers prefer softer expressions.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: Mandarin speakers often use 喜欢 (xǐhuan, to like) in daily life instead of directly saying 我爱你.

3. Love in English – Love

📌 Nuance: English has one word for love, but it can be used very broadly, for everything from romance and family to hobbies and food.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: English speakers use “love” freely, sometimes even for things like “Dude, I love pizza” .

4. Love in French – (La) Amour

📌 Nuance: The language of romance, supposedly! Amour (noun) and aimer (verb) cover love, but aimer can also mean "to like."

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: While Je t’aime means "I love you", adding one tiny word and saying "Je t’aime bien" actually turns the phrase into "I like you". Be careful!

(Note: In French, nouns are often accompanied by articles (a/an/the). With this in mind, rather than seeing "amour" alone, you'll often see l'amour, a contraction of la + amour)

5. Love in German – Liebe

📌 Nuance: Liebe (noun) means love; lieben (verb) means to love. Lieben is a strong word in German.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: Whereas we love everything in English, Germans are more reserved with Lieben. Unless you know what you're doing, consider using mögen (to like) unless you really, really feel strongly about something.

6. Love in Korean – 사랑 (sarang)

📌 Nuance: How serious a word 사랑해 is in Korean can vary from person to person and province to province. Wait and observe a bit before using it with someone.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: 사랑 is a noun, but can be made into a verb by adding 하다. You can learn more about this in our article on Korean verbs!

7. Love in Japanese – 愛 (ai) & 恋 (koi)

📌 Nuance: You probably won't hear either of these words often in daily life! You'll more likely hear 好き (suki, "like") or 大好き (daisuki, "really like").

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: In Japanese, there's a phrase 「愛は真ん中に心という漢字があるから真心、恋は下に心があるから下心。」, which translates to "The heart 心 is in the middle of 愛, so it's true love... but it's in the bottom of 恋, so that's just "down heart" (ulterior motive)".

8. Love in Portuguese – (O) Amor

📌 Nuance: As with some of the other languages we've discussed, amor (and its verb form amar ) are reserved for romantic love. For example, the Portuguese translation of the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond" is "Todos Gostam do Raymond" (Everyone Likes Raymond).

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: Brazilian and European Portuguese are quite different. One of these differences is visible here: in European Portuguese, object pronouns (you/me/etc) usually come after the verb; in Brazilian Portuguese, they come close to the subject pronoun (the person doing the verb). You can see above that "te" comes before "amo" in Brazil, but after it in Portugal.

(Note: In Portuguese, nouns are often accompanied by articles (a/an/the). With this in mind, rather than seeing "amor" alone, you'll often see "o amor").

9. Love in Spanish – (El) Amor

📌 Nuance: Like Portuguese, Spanish has amor (noun) and amar (verb). Also like Portuguese and several of the other languages on this list, amar is a strong word usually reserved for your significant other.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: You might actually be able to tell your friends "te quiero", but it differs from place to place and person to person. If you aren't sure, you can safely capture a similar sentiment with "te aprecio" (I appreciate you). If you want to say that you love something, you can accomplish that with "me encanta" (~ delights me).

(Note: In Spanish, nouns are often accompanied by articles (a/an/the). With this in mind, rather than seeing "amor" alone, you'll often see "el amor").

10. Love in Vietnamese – Yêu & Thương

📌 Nuance: Whereas other languages have had this distinction in terms of usage, Vietnamese actually has different words to refer to platonic vs romantic love.

🗣 Examples:

💡 Insight: As mentioned, yêu describe the passionate first stage of a relationship. Couples start out feeling yêu for each other, but as the relationship matures and they begin to care more deeply for one another, they begin feeling thương for one another. In other words, you can thương and yêu someone simultaneously!

(Note: Be careful with tones! While Yêu means "love", the very similar looking "yếu" means "weak" ! Notice how with yếu (weak) the person's voice rises continuously, but it doesn't with Yêu (love) )

In conclusion

Since we're talking about love, I'm going to be kinda corny here:

In learning a language, as with loving a person, words matter—but actions are much more important. Just like a person wouldn't believe you loved them if you say so but never spend any time with them, you won't make much progress learning a language if you focus on individual words.

If this seems like common sense to you, too, and you're ready to start learning any of the above languages by consuming content you enjoy in them—click the button below.