{"id":1020,"date":"2011-10-24T11:56:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T11:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2018-02-07T11:44:12","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T10:44:12","slug":"how-to-say-i-love-you-in-italian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/how-to-say-i-love-you-in-italian\/","title":{"rendered":"How to say ‘I love you’ in Italian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently one of the most frequently asked questions on internet search engines is \u2018how do you say \u201cI love you\u201d in Italian…<\/em> or Spanish, or German, or Greek, etc. etc. Well, this must be good news for international relations, and it\u2019s certainly a lovely antidote to all the scaremongering perpetrated by politicians and the media who would have us believe that the world is full of nothing but terrorism, crime, hatred, murder, and misery. Wake up media managers and politicians, what people really want to know is how to say \u201cI LOVE YOU\u201d to foreigners!!<\/p>\n

In Italy we are famous for being open with our sentiments. Just study the graffiti!<\/p>\n

\"ti<\/a><\/p>\n

Here we have the answer to the question \u2018how do you say \u201cI love you\u201d in Italian?\u2019<\/em>, or at least part of it, as we shall see. The message in the photo says \u2018Alex ti amo\u2019<\/strong> = \u2018I love you Alex\u2019, and is composed of ti<\/strong> = \u2018you\u2019 (familiar) and amo<\/strong> = \u2018I love\u2019, the first person singular of the verb amare<\/strong> = \u2018to love\u2019. Let\u2019s have a look at how to say I love you to more than one person at a time:<\/p>\n

\"ti<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018NICKY E SILVY VI AMO UN [SACCO] SIETE LE MIE MIGLIORI AMICHE\u2019<\/strong> = \u2018Nicky and Silvy I love you a lot, you are my best friends\u2019. Here we have: vi<\/strong> =\u00a0 you (plural) and amo<\/strong> = \u2018I love\u2019<\/p>\n

If you want to tell someone that you really love them, or love them a lot you could say: Ti amo troppo<\/strong> = I love you too much. You could also say ti amo tanto<\/strong>, or, as in the photo above, ti amo un sacco<\/strong> = I love you a lot. I recently saw an impressive declaration of love written along about 10 meters of metal guard rail which read: ti amo tanto tanto tanto tanto tanto tanto tanto<\/strong> etc. = I really really really really really really really really love you. (unfortunately I couldn\u2019t fit it all into a photo!)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve become quite fascinated with, and touched by some of the romantic\u00a0 graffiti that I\u2019ve read here in Italy. Here are some of my favourites:<\/p>\n

\u201cUn anno fa c\u2019eravamo promessi di sposarci, \u00e8 passato un anno e abbiamo mantenuto la promessa \u2013 Barbara e Sergio X sempre!!\u201d<\/strong> = \u201cA year ago we promised that we would marry each other, a year has passed and we have kept that promise \u2013 Barbara and Sergio 4 ever!!\u201d (written on a building wall in Montemarcello)<\/p>\n

\u201cLaura ti adoro, 6 <\/strong>(shorthand for \u2018sei\u2019)<\/em> la mia stella pi\u00f9 bella\u201d<\/strong> = \u201cLaura I adore you, you are my most beautiful star\u201d (found on a toilet door in Sarzana)<\/p>\n

and this one that I photographed on the Ligurian coast<\/p>\n

\"ti<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBECAUSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD I LOVE ONLY YOU\u2026 Patato best wishes I LOVE YOU\u201d. (Patato\/a<\/strong> = Potato, is often used as an affectionate nickname)<\/p>\n

However, whereas in English the word love is used in any situation where we have a strong emotional bond with someone, in Italian we differentiate between romantic and non-romantic love. Ti amo<\/strong> is how we say I love you to someone that we are \u2018in love with\u2019 romantically, but for friends, family, and animals we use volere bene a qualcuno<\/strong> = \u2018to love someone in a non romantic way\u2019, literally \u2018to want well for someone\u2019. Here is how we use it:<\/p>\n

ti voglio bene<\/strong> = I love\/really care for you<\/p>\n

vi voglio bene<\/strong> = I love\/really care for you (plural)<\/p>\n

voglio bene\u00a0 a mia sorella<\/strong> = I love\/really care for my sister<\/p>\n

Note that as with ti amo<\/strong>, you can add tanto<\/strong> = \u2018very much\/a lot\u2019 to this expression:<\/p>\n

ti voglio tanto bene<\/strong> = I really care for you a lot<\/p>\n

If you want to text this message to someone you can abbreviate it to TVB<\/strong> = ti voglio bene<\/strong>, or TVTB<\/strong> = ti voglio tanto bene<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember that although it is fairly common to use the expression volere bene<\/strong> with someone that you are romantically in love with, the opposite rule does not apply, i.e. we never use ti amo<\/strong> for non-romantic relationships. If, on the other hand, you want to say \u2018I love something<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 you would say \u2018adoro il gelato\u2019<\/strong> = I love ice-cream, adoro la musica di Lacuna Coil<\/strong> = I love Lacuna Coil\u2019s music, etc.<\/p>\n

Text and photos by Geoff<\/em><\/p>\n

If you are interested in learning how to say i love you in Italian<\/a>, you can hear it said by a native speaker here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Apparently one of the most frequently asked questions on internet search engines is \u2018how do you say \u201cI love you\u201d in Italian… or Spanish, or German, or Greek, etc. etc. Well, this must be good news for international relations, and it\u2019s certainly a lovely antidote to all the scaremongering perpetrated by politicians and the media…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[619],"tags":[58998,58999,59000],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-italian-language","tag-how-to-say-i-love-you-in-italian","tag-ti-amo","tag-ti-voglio-bene"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15652,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/15652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}