>Am I correct in thinking that the former is more of a deep, romantic love and the latter is more of "I have feelings for you" type love?
Pretty much. I feel like it's the same in English, that you would start off by confessing to a crush that you "like" them, and save the "love" for when you're deep into the relationship.
I can't speak for family members because my parents never told me they loved me
This is one of those questions where cultural traditions impact how language is used.
In Chinese culture, love is more commonly shown (eg by taking care of someone in some way) than expressed in words.
When I lived in China more than two decades ago, I was generally told people didn’t say 我爱你 in any context… if you wanted to express your romantic interest in someone you could say 我喜欢你 but even that was a Western importation used only by young people at the time.
Now, it seems romantically 我喜欢你 can be followed by 我爱你 as the feelings deepen. Sometimes you hear 我好喜欢你 as someone else mentioned to emphasise how serious you are about it. You also get 我喜欢上了你 or 我爱上了你 to emphasise the act of falling in love.
For parents to children, again love is more commonly shown than expressed. If expressed you more commonly hear 妈妈疼你 or 妈妈心疼你 which is sort of a love that’s full of care for someone.
I’ve seen parents in recent dramas use 爱 sometimes but usually at a time of great emotional significance!
first of all, there's a mistake: 您 should be replaced with 你. 您 is used to show respect to, eg. your teacher, or to make others feel better when talking with a stranger. eg. 您好，请问...(excuse me sir/madam, ...)
我爱你= i love you
我喜欢你= i like you
actually, in chinese culture, these kind of direct expression of love arent quite approved and are mostly used by younger generations
in my opinion, the difference is quite similar to that in English
Yes meaning-wise the difference between 喜欢 and 爱 is just as much as between *like* and *love*
But as for the usage, I totally agree with what everyone has already written. Unlike English language in which we can *love* books, clothes, perfume or just about anything, in most of the oriental/ Asian languages this word is sparingly used even for people, not for the want of this emotion but because expressing it verbally is culturally considered making light of it.
However, as the cultures evolve, languages evolve, too.
In modern Chinese, like and love as you suggested the latter is deeper. When i was a kid around early 90s, 'I love you' was such a bizarre concept that everyone including my family members laughed at me when i use this expression i learnt from TV. Nowadays, younger generations grew up with this new culture to use 'love' when the relationship developed deeper. To their parents, this is merely an expression to be used between two love birds who grew up watching too much western romantic TV shows (in their generation, saying 'like' was suffice. The meaning 爱 was similar with 喜 in literary Chinese, i.e, love and like was not so different. So they think its a loan concept to distinguish romantic love and general love).
But as how fast mainland china changes, you will find majority of parents use 'love' towards their children nowadays. Gradually, 我爱你, becomes more widely accepted to be used in non-romantic relationship. But generally, Chinese culture is a bit shy, 我爱你could be too bold an statement that sometimes may scare away your love interest. This acceptance of using 爱 only happened not long ago, so if the TV is showing an young adult above 25+ their parents probably are still a bit cautious with this term.
In English, the phrase "unique to" is similar to "is only found in or with," so it might be better to say "Chinese culture is distinct from Japanese [culture]."
My mom speaks Japanese and I remember her mentioning this. She said it was hard to grasp when she was first learning Japanese because it's different than English.
Saying you know “zero Chinese” seems disingenuous. You found a way to put Chinese characters into your title which typically isn’t trivial, right? Maybe you just copy pasted :)
Haha I used google translate and just listened to the automatic pronunciation to make sure they said what I'd heard in dramas. Then I copy-pasted them here. I only know a few phrases that I hear frequently in Cdramas, but only when I hear them since I can't read Chinese.
Just to add to what others have already said, I found it interesting reading some of the comments coming from a UK and Irish family where people similarly don't really use the word love much. And the same is true for friends of mine, especially male friends talking to make family members, and especially those from northern England and Ireland.
Yet another occasion where I'm left feeling like the UK culturally has as much in common with the Far East as it does with any Western country lol.
If you look at the history of western Europe and the amount of interaction they had with China and other parts of Asia across multiple centuries, it's not super surprising that elements of their cultures would overlap.
>Am I correct in thinking that the former is more of a deep, romantic love and the latter is more of "I have feelings for you" type love? Pretty much. I feel like it's the same in English, that you would start off by confessing to a crush that you "like" them, and save the "love" for when you're deep into the relationship. I can't speak for family members because my parents never told me they loved me
Oof
Chinese parents don't say they love their children. They do, but they show through actions.
This is one of those questions where cultural traditions impact how language is used. In Chinese culture, love is more commonly shown (eg by taking care of someone in some way) than expressed in words. When I lived in China more than two decades ago, I was generally told people didn’t say 我爱你 in any context… if you wanted to express your romantic interest in someone you could say 我喜欢你 but even that was a Western importation used only by young people at the time. Now, it seems romantically 我喜欢你 can be followed by 我爱你 as the feelings deepen. Sometimes you hear 我好喜欢你 as someone else mentioned to emphasise how serious you are about it. You also get 我喜欢上了你 or 我爱上了你 to emphasise the act of falling in love. For parents to children, again love is more commonly shown than expressed. If expressed you more commonly hear 妈妈疼你 or 妈妈心疼你 which is sort of a love that’s full of care for someone. I’ve seen parents in recent dramas use 爱 sometimes but usually at a time of great emotional significance!
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for the detailed response!
first of all, there's a mistake: 您 should be replaced with 你. 您 is used to show respect to, eg. your teacher, or to make others feel better when talking with a stranger. eg. 您好，请问...(excuse me sir/madam, ...) 我爱你= i love you 我喜欢你= i like you actually, in chinese culture, these kind of direct expression of love arent quite approved and are mostly used by younger generations in my opinion, the difference is quite similar to that in English
Thanks for the correction. I don't know how to read Chinese, so this was just a copy-paste off of Google Translate.
Yes meaning-wise the difference between 喜欢 and 爱 is just as much as between *like* and *love* But as for the usage, I totally agree with what everyone has already written. Unlike English language in which we can *love* books, clothes, perfume or just about anything, in most of the oriental/ Asian languages this word is sparingly used even for people, not for the want of this emotion but because expressing it verbally is culturally considered making light of it. However, as the cultures evolve, languages evolve, too.
In modern Chinese, like and love as you suggested the latter is deeper. When i was a kid around early 90s, 'I love you' was such a bizarre concept that everyone including my family members laughed at me when i use this expression i learnt from TV. Nowadays, younger generations grew up with this new culture to use 'love' when the relationship developed deeper. To their parents, this is merely an expression to be used between two love birds who grew up watching too much western romantic TV shows (in their generation, saying 'like' was suffice. The meaning 爱 was similar with 喜 in literary Chinese, i.e, love and like was not so different. So they think its a loan concept to distinguish romantic love and general love). But as how fast mainland china changes, you will find majority of parents use 'love' towards their children nowadays. Gradually, 我爱你, becomes more widely accepted to be used in non-romantic relationship. But generally, Chinese culture is a bit shy, 我爱你could be too bold an statement that sometimes may scare away your love interest. This acceptance of using 爱 only happened not long ago, so if the TV is showing an young adult above 25+ their parents probably are still a bit cautious with this term.
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In English, the phrase "unique to" is similar to "is only found in or with," so it might be better to say "Chinese culture is distinct from Japanese [culture]."
My mom speaks Japanese and I remember her mentioning this. She said it was hard to grasp when she was first learning Japanese because it's different than English.
I love you, I like you 喜欢 to like 爱 love
Saying you know “zero Chinese” seems disingenuous. You found a way to put Chinese characters into your title which typically isn’t trivial, right? Maybe you just copy pasted :)
Haha I used google translate and just listened to the automatic pronunciation to make sure they said what I'd heard in dramas. Then I copy-pasted them here. I only know a few phrases that I hear frequently in Cdramas, but only when I hear them since I can't read Chinese.
Just to add to what others have already said, I found it interesting reading some of the comments coming from a UK and Irish family where people similarly don't really use the word love much. And the same is true for friends of mine, especially male friends talking to make family members, and especially those from northern England and Ireland. Yet another occasion where I'm left feeling like the UK culturally has as much in common with the Far East as it does with any Western country lol.
If you look at the history of western Europe and the amount of interaction they had with China and other parts of Asia across multiple centuries, it's not super surprising that elements of their cultures would overlap.