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Marko
Staff Lene.it / Moderator
Italy
949 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Mar 2004 : 15:39:48
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Welcome Gerry!! Where are you from?
The difference between that two expressions is that when you use "Ti amo" you mean a stronger and deeper feeling. "Ti amo" means simply "I love you" and you say it only to your girlfriend, you don't say it to your mother for example (perhaps a child could do it, when you're a child you also do say to your mother you would marry her when you're grown up  ).
To your parents, to a child, to a friend and also to your domestic animal you say "Ti voglio bene" and it can have every time a different meaning, 'cos love has different meanings, but generally it means something like that you are affectionated to them and you want to take care.
You love your mother and your girlfriend, but not the same way. That's why I find good that in Italian there are often two ways of saying a word. Also in German, while in English and Spanish it seems to me that there are less synonymous.
But "Ti voglio bene" and "Ti amo", as you understood, are not really synonymous. Only if you say to your girlfriend "Ti voglio bene" this could also mean "Ti amo", but expressed in a more affectionated way. Don't know, it's not that simple, it depends much also of the way, of the tone you pronounce that words 
There is, I think, an ecception: Jesus said to love God and your brothers and it's translated with "Amate" (2nd person plural of the verb Amare) not with the verb "volere bene". But it's translated that way to let understand the intensity you have to love God and your neighbour. So this is another kind of love, different fromt the one you feel for your parents, different from the one you feel for your girlfriend, but basically it could be translated also with "volere bene".
While, I repeat, "Ti amo" is normally used only between lovers, it's (or should be) a more intimate and strong expression.
Cannot control this... this thing called Lene |
Edited by - Marko on 22 Mar 2004 15:43:29 |
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Love meanings
