Among its extremely long list of definitions, love has been defined as “an intense feeling of affection related to a sense of strong loyalty or profound oneness.” Of course this meaning changes quite a bit according to the context in which you place it. For example, platonic love is much different from romantic love, brotherly love, the love for a child/parent, etc.
The English language doesn’t have different words for different types of love like other languages do, so they have to resort to thoroughly explaining themselves, but love itself can sometimes be complicated to explain as many would agree.
In ancient Greek there were actually four different words to describe different kinds of love and even then the definitions couldn’t be completely separated from each other. Spanish has a description for love a bit more profound than what one would express in English, but still isn’t as explicit as ancient Greek. For some reason, certain languages embrace the meaning of love better than others. There are even languages where the word “love” doesn’t even exist in the vocabulary.
In Spanish, the word love or “amor” (ah-mohr) is often used to describe romantic love but can also be used to describe a very deep bond between 2 people (i.e. father and child, God, etc.) or between someone and something (i.e. country, job, etc.) To describe a love that exists but isn’t romantic or excessively deep, one would use the word “querer” (k-rehr). You could use this word to describe a love between brothers, friends, humanity, etc. To tell someone “I love you” in Spanish you have to make sure you know the meaning of the two words and you differentiate the kind of love you are trying to express. “Te amo” (teh ah-mo) causes a deeper reaction than “Te quiero.” (teh kee-eh-roh) because it means more. If you would like to intensify any one of the two phrases you could add the word “mucho” (moo-cho) which means “a lot”. So you would say “Te amo mucho” or “Te quiero mucho”.
In English it’s become quite common to hear “I love you” and it’s begun to lose much of its profoundness. In Spanish this isn’t the case. Saying “I love you” in Spanish isn’t something that is just thrown around lightly, especially in the romantic sense. To say “Te amo” brings with it a sort of responsibility towards the person you are saying it to. With those words you’re confessing strong loyalty and profound feeling towards that other person. This intense definition is often why some people actually get scared off at the sound of those two little words, especially when you’re dealing with a commitment phobic man or woman for that matter.
Now, if you’ve been dating someone for a little while and you feel a very intense attraction and a connection with the other person but aren’t sure the other person feels the same about you or it’s just too early to tell whether it’s desire or undying love, you can test your waters with “Te quiero.”, which still means “I love you” in Spanish but isn’t as intense.
Once you do get to the point of a strong bond and mutual romantic love, saying “I love you” for the first time is something divine. Hearing those words from the object of your affection has a natural way of wrapping you up in a blanket of passion. Making you rise above the moon and the stars. A feeling so sublime you feel like you’re on top of the world. Saying “I love you” in Spanish, in my opinion, has a more romantic side to it since you can actually differentiate the kind of love you are confessing.
So if you want to make sure you’re undying love isn’t misunderstood, try saying “I love you” in Spanish. “Te amo.” Now who wouldn’t fall in love with that?