15 Love Phrases for Valentine’s Day

Hello Alessia,

You can. Valentine’s Day is all about love, but there’s no rule that says it has to be all about romantic love. It is for love generally. 😄

Elena

RussianPod101.com

Привет :)

Love the phrase: Любовь, это просто любовь. ❤️

But... how can I wish someone (even just a friend) a happy Valentine's Day?

Greetings,

Alessia

Hello Ronald,

I lived in Kiev, I guess the words "You are my man" depends on a certain girl. :))

I don't know the word “овлекаться”. Maybe the spelling is different?

Elena

Привет Лена, Спасибо за ваш ответ! :)

It is strange though. In the USA every body says "I love you" to their close friends and close people easily and often. In my Latin or Hispanic culture we also say "I love you" often to friends. On the other hand, I've noticed Ukrainian girls dare to say first "You are my man" even before saying "I love you".... this is a pity because we don't only love husbands, parents, and our children. We all love our friends too, don't we?

So, how about using the verb "овлекаться"? Can I say "я овликаюсь тебя" just to mean that "I like you very much"?

Thank you for your patience reading my looooooong questions Lena! :D

Ronald

Hello Ronald,

Very interesting question.

You are right, “I love you” is a deep feeling. We basically don`t say such kind of phrases to our friends. There is no equivalent of "I love you" or "I like you" in Russian which can be used towards friends. However, you can use “Я люблю тебя” towards your parents and it would sound natural.

Hope I answered your question.

Please let me me if something is unclear :smile:

Elena

Yes Lena, I have a question, thank you!

Contrary to the English or American culture, I've noticed on the Russian culture women don't easily say “Я люблю тебя” to some one they go out with and I imagine Russian men either. It seems to me that Russian culture people reserve the phrase “Я люблю тебя” to very special people whom they are in love with. On my Hispanic culture it is similar to the Russian culture on this regard. We reserve to say “Я люблю тебя” to people whom we intensively, deeply or passionately love. So, in Spanish we have another way to say "I love you" which means the same as “Я люблю тебя” but it does not mean it so intensively and not really passionately either. This way in my culture we say “Я люблю тебя” more often and to close friends, parents, and relatives. So my question is: Do you in the Russian language have another way to say “Я люблю тебя” which can easily be said to our beloved people without meaning it so deeply or passionately?

Excuse my long question but I think it is important.

Ronald

Hello Ronald,

Thank you for posting.

Yes, that's right, literal translation doesn't always work.

Thank you for using RussianPod101.com.

Let us know if you have any question.

Cheers,

Lena

Team RussianPod101.com

Good evening: In my opinion to literally translate "Я тебя люблю" into English, we would need say "I you I love"; although it is not a good idea to translate it literally. To avoid confusion most phrases in any language should be memorized rather than translated literally, whether we like it or not. We don't translate our native language when we speak, we rather say every thing by heart, don't we?

Hello Jason,

Yes, you can also say "Я люблю тебя".

Both sentences are totally correct.

Elena

ah! as I see Gary wrote also :grin: