Forum - View topicConfessions of Love
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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As some of you probably already know I am a bit of a sucker for romance anime and so I've seen a fair bit. What I've noticed is the prevalence of people confessing their 'love', now perhaps this is a translation problem but perhaps its a cultural thing. Now over here 'love' has a far stronger connotation attached to it than seems to be portrayed when these characters confess their 'love'.
Kare Kano for example, spoiler[Arima doesnt say he likes Yukino, the first inkling she gets is him actually coming out and saying 'I love you']. So essentially my question is:- Is the use of the word 'love' in these situations a translation problem or is it that the Japanese dont put such a strong connotation to it? I know I never asked anyone out and said I loved them...not until I actually proposed did I ever use that word in the relationship sense... |
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Arkard
 Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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Now this a very interesting question.
When a japanese teen conffeses he/she usually doesnt use the word love (ai or koi) but rather Suki (pro. ski) as in "kimo (no koto) ga suki" or simply "suki". The literall meaning of "suki" is to like. So if you translate it word-to-word, all they are saying is "I like you". Nothing more. The word itself doesnt carry a strong conotation of "love". But the situation does. If spoken in a confession, the word suki means quite plainly "love". And everyone in Japan is aware of it. The japanese are a peculiar nation when it comes to articulating their real emotions. I remember catching one person, who was a teacher in Japan (she is Polish) telling me that her students claimed to never use the word "love" (ai) to a girl. Because it would sound simply weird. There words, not mine. There is of course a second conffesion phrase, which I forgot, but it goes something as "I want to be at/by your side". Apparently there is a whole range of "socialy" accepted phrases that are recognized as conffesions of "love". Even if the actual words dont carry the literall meaning. Still, by what I`ve learned, the whole concept of love is quite different than in the West. But that is a whole different topic. |
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Mushiko
 Posts: 96 Location: Finland |
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I'm not sure about the English translations (I'd need to have examples), but I'd say the problem is the opposite: for what I remember, confessions in anime are generally made with the word "suki", which literally means "to like". The actual verb for love, "aishiteiru" is a much stronger expression and very rarely used (except in scenes gushing with emotion
 ). My guess is that the English translators find the literal equivalent, "I like you", too bland and vague in English, so they upgrade it to "love" - after all, that's what they are practically confessing.
Anyway, I'd say it is the other way round, the Japanese "aishiteiru" is stronger than the English "love", hence its usage also tends to be even more restricted. (Disclaimer: I'm not a native speaker of either language, so these are just my impressions. I've actually always thought that "love" is used rather mundanely in the English language.  )
Ah, Arkard got here before me. I concur with him, except that I wouldn't say the concept of love is different (or at least that this is necessarily an indication of that). It is more a question of language: English is a very explicit language, everything spelled out as it is, whereas Japanese is very implicit, i.e. the interpretation of the actual meaning is left more to the receiver. In such a language, saying things directly would seem too "loud" or tactless, or even condescending to the receiver. Japanese basically plays much more with the connotations than the literal meanings. (I hail from a relatively implicit culture/language myself - in Finland, at least in the olden days, an old married couple might have never actually said "I love you" to each other, yet it could still very well be true love - the words wouldn't be needed to understand that. Or at least so the story goes.  Anyway, it is a very strong word here as well.)
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one3rd
 Posts: 1818 Location: アメリカ |
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Basically, the strength of the word "suki" really depends on the context in which it's used. Much of Japanese is like that. It's not so much what you say as how you say it.
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Arkard
Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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and WHEN you say it. That is one of the most important factors here. Oh, and I stated before that I believe the concept of love in the more traditional japanese sense is different. I say it after dating a japanese girl for 3 year. We are also getting married somewhere next year. I guess I can speak from experience. Of course I venture a guess the modern japanese youth has basically a very westernish look at the whole thing. Oh well. |
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