Hey everyone, I’m working on a poetry project (Escapril, for those of you who know what it is) and for the prompt ‘Language’, I decided to write a poem consisting of one or two lines in every language that I currently know. I need a little bit of help with this.
I’m curious, what are some commonly used phrases in Japanese culture to say you love someone? Like in English someone might say “you’re the love of my life”, in Chinese they might say something that roughly translates to “you’re a pearl in the palm of my hand”. Are there any such phrases in Japanese? Thanks in advance~
5 comments
>every language that I currently know
If you’re asking this question, do you or do you not know Japanese? 😅
Culturally speaking, the Japanese aren’t verbally expressive. Just because words and phrases in Japanese that equates to love and romance exist doesn’t mean people say it. I’m sure there are crap tons of people in Japan never uttered a phrase similar to “I love you” in their entire lives even when they have spouse and kids.
There might be some phrases but I can’t think of anything myself.
Kawaii
Something like 「会えて嬉しい」or「会えなくて淋しい」(“I’m happy to have met you” and “I miss you”, respectively) could probably be considered romantic with context. Like others have said, the Japanese aren’t very verbally expressive, so 「愛してる」 and 「大好き」 aren’t as common as English speakers may expect.
The most famous one of these phrases is 月が綺麗ですね, shows pretty well how indirect Japanese can be.