Watching Japanese drama's I often see the phrase "大好き" translated as "I love you" in the English subtitles. Shouldn't this be translated as "I really like you"? In English, "I love you" would be a stronger phrase than "I really like you".

In Japanese is there a difference between "大好き" and "愛してる" or are they pretty much the same? I've been wondering about this for a while now.

i don't know about the difference between 大好き and 愛している。

but as far as the english translation it's entirely dependent on the context. english "i like you" and "i love you" can carry different contexts, as can 「好き」 and 「大好き」。 and one context of 大好き can be "i like you," or it can be "i love you" and vice versa.

i would not be too concerned about whether the english translation is accurate if you're studying japanese, since you can probably innately understand the meaning without having to rely on the english. think of the english translation as a guidepost. it's only through multiple exposures and different contexts will you truly know what a word means.

大好き is closer to what normal people would use. 愛してる is more like something you only hear in songs, films, TV shows and so on. If I remember correctly, it sounds slightly comical to use that in real life, just like someone going around saying 手前・テメエ or キサマ would be ridiculed for sounding like a manga character.

And if you're just letting someone you know that you like them (attracted to them), then 好き will suffice. Saying 大好き right off the bat will sound a bit odd.

Roughly speaking, when applied to people,
好き means 'I love you (and want to date you / am happy we are dating)'
大好き means 'I love you (and want to hold you in my arms all day long!)'
愛してる means 'I love you (and want you to accept my marriage proposal / am glad now on my deathbed that we have been married all these years)'.

The parenthetical parts to suggest the tone of the different loves, not that those are explicit meanings.


I've heard it said by Japanese people that 愛してる is something you say to your spouse only a handful of times in your entire life.

When applied to things other than people, these things all step back a notch,
'I like cats', 'I love cats', 'I am devoting my life to my beloved cats'. More accurately, perhaps, this is the sort of meaning the words have, but for cultural reasons they take on a magnified meaning when applied to people. Either way you think of it, it ends up the same.

(I had been under the impression that 愛してる was only for romantic love, but a native speaker corrected me and suggested that 愛してる for cats gives the impression of someone dedicating their life to activism or animal rescue. I'm not sure how many other cases there are for 愛してる.)

恋 also exists, but I think is used more to talk -about- love then to declare it.

The way I've categorized the two is this.

You use すき・大好き for practically everything you like or feel very strongly for.

愛してる is used in situations where you CARE FOR someone in the sense that you'd sacrifice resources (money, goods, time, feelings, your life) for them. I've always felt 愛する was more focused on the "What I'll do for you because I love you," while 好き was more about "I really like you and want to spend time with you." You すき・大好き　your friends, gf/bf, hobbies, interests. However you 愛する your children and your mate.

There's also a cultural thing at play here too. Traditional Buddhist culture versus ideas of western love. It's really complicated but basically most Japanese have a concept of 愛 that probably doesn't line up with your idea of "love".

Just ask your Japanese friends if they have ever used the word 愛する within their family.

The previous posters explained the difference between 大好き・愛してる pretty well. But I think they overlapped the nuance that 愛 carries with 恋。

愛 - universal love (agape)
恋 - romantic love (eros)

This goes into more details on both kanji
http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesecul...r-Love.htm

Now what if you wanted to tell a friend that you liked them. Like a situation where you would say something like "I like you. You're funny." or "I'm going to do this only because I like you." Not in the romantic sense.

domokun1134 Wrote:Now what if you wanted to tell a friend that you liked them. Like a situation where you would say something like "I like you. You're funny." or "I'm going to do this only because I like you." Not in the romantic sense.

Do people talk like that even in English without coming across as creepy? The first one sounds like romantic interest to me and the second one sounds えらそう, especially if you said it in Japanese (look at me do this huge thing for you, you'd better realize how generous I am and be thankful).

domokun1134 Wrote:Now what if you wanted to tell a friend that you liked them. Like a situation where you would say something like "I like you. You're funny." or "I'm going to do this only because I like you." Not in the romantic sense.

「name」さん・くん・ちゃんといるのが楽しい！
or
「name」さん・くん・ちゃん面白いね！

My Japanese teacher told me that she never says 愛してる to her husband and if her husband says that to her then he's probably drunk.
She did admit to saying it to her cat though.

I think as a general rule, we should remember that Japanese into English is never smooth, thus, when translating from Japanese to English, it is best to... not.

Better is, to ask a native Japanese speaker, or someone equally as versed in the language, and get their input. I'd go with that before anything else.

~ fv

When I read it, 愛してる carries a very strong emotional attachment while 大好き doesn't have that connotation.