If you were to ask Google Translate how to say “I love you.” in Japanese, it will give you the word Aishiteru or at least a form of it. However, I think that if you’ve watched and, more importantly, listened to a bunch of Japanese media whether that be anime, tokusatsu, video games etc., you’re far more likely to be familiar with another term, Daisuki. So infrequently have I heard Aishiteru that I thought to look deeper into its use and soon discovered that this word contains a surprising amount of power, so much so that some people will tell you to never use it in any shape or form. This topic proved intriguing enough to me that I thought it might be interesting to discuss the differences and meanings as well as a few examples I’ve found.
Aishiteru, written as 愛してる in Japanese, uses the kanji for love and seems, at first, like the closest translation to the English phrase “I love you.” However, social norms and culture mean that this phrase carries far more weight in Japanese than it would in English. This is a perfect example of where a literal translation loses much of the subtlety and context of the situation someone’s in. Instead, the phrase Daisuki, written as 大好き, uses both the kanji for big, 大, and the kanji for like, 好, which results in being similar to saying “I really like you.” in English. However, I’ve seen many examples of Daisuki being translated as “I love you.” since it’s the closest English phrase for the situation.
