Rufus T Firefly
mccWhen learning Chinese I am really struggling with 愛 , and when it is more appropriate to use versus a word like 喜歡. I do not want to accidentally suggest I want to marry potato salad
Oblomov
tkissing
cwicseolfor@mcc As far as I understand (as a fellow Chinese student, fifteen or so years removed) this may be an anglophone issue, especially USians tend to say we “love” all manner of things (and speak hyperbolically about our emotions in general) where most cultures would say something pleases or gladdens them. To the best of my knowledge a lot of the loosening use of the idea of love in several of my target languages has been pinned on American media influence.
@cwicseolfor I think so, and so I have been trying to use 愛 very strictly only to mean romantic love, but then sometimes a sinophone will tell me "no no you should have used 愛there" and I do not have a sense of the rule
I feel like I don't struggle with when to use "amor" in Spanish. Maybe I should just assume the same rules in Chinese
@mcc I’m still speaking toddler Spanish, but yes, it feels very similar!
shironeko@mcc @cwicseolfor in my experience it's often interchangeable anyway, some native speakers would use one vs the other, there's no consistency.
Brian Campbell@mcc @cwicseolfor So, looking around, it sounds like 愛 is considered to be a very strong word when referring to people; it's a very deep, intense word in that context, and as such frequently avoided.
But in other context, when you're talking about being passionate about something like a hobby, it can be more common.
Heck. look at what I just did there in English; "passionate" is a fairly intense and personal thing when talking about how you feel about a person, but relatively common if you're talking about a hobby. Still intense, but not quite a steamy and personal as when talking about your feelings towards a person.
Note: I'm not at all an expert, I don't speak Chinese. I just like getting nerd-sniped by questions like this and doing research.
@mcc @cwicseolfor Oh, and also, it sounds like because 愛 is so strong, 喜歡 is frequently used for expressing a crush or attraction (much like how we can use "like" in English, or what some people might refer to as "like like"). So even that can be fairly strong if just referring to a friendship.
But again, a lot of those considerations go away when you're talking about objects, hobbies, etc, and it sounds like there are cases where really you're expected to use 愛 in those cases. It's much more OK to be passionate (publicly) about hobbies or causes, than it is about people.
May Likes Toronto@mcc How I process it in my head:
愛 = love, but more for people, characters, personalities (like pets)
喜歡 = derive joy from + [object or activity]
I think the latter can be used with people too, but rarer?
Gaelan Steele@mayintoronto @mcc I parse 喜欢 for people as “like”, in the sense of romantic attraction but you’re not ready to call it love yet; but not sure how standard this is
Ro🌱@mayintoronto @mcc My professors said they always told their kids 妈妈很喜欢你 for “I love you”
@Recalcitrant I wonder if it's regional too. @mcc
@mayintoronto @mcc probably!!! One professor was from Taiwan, the others were from mainland China, but I can’t remember where :/
Manic Emo Dream Ghoul@mcc 爱 don't even means romantic love, it just means love. Romantic love is "爱情".
I just love how most languages can love in philia, pragma, storge, ludus, mania, philautia, agape, meraki, and many many other ways without eros. I also don't feel romantic love toward how most languages do this, that would be rather amatanormative and deeply weird.
@BigShellEvent So if I am discussing an inanimate object, like Ice Cream, or a movie, if I say 爱 it merely means strong 喜歡?
@mcc Pretty much. Slight regional variation, where I am from using say 喜欢吃 instead of 爱吃 sounds like someone trying to be a hipster wanker. In most regions any are as good as each other.
Teoh Han Hui@mcc It's different in Mandarin and Japanese.
Going by your example the other day, people would usually say e.g. 我愛吃冰淇淋 or 我愛喝奶茶
Using 喜歡 isn't wrong but feels more awkward?
Ravindra Kanodia@mcc when you're first learning a language, you'll say that you're marrying the potato salad and everyone will laugh at your horrible misunderstanding of words. When you're a master, you'll say that you're marrying the potato salad and everybody will laugh at the incredibly funny contextually-appropriate joke that you just told
standev@ravindra @mcc I dunno. I went to a masters level foreign language summer program and one of our guest speakers (a foreign-born TV personality living in the country whose language we were learning) said it was mostly about being comfortable with the fact that no matter how competent and experienced you are, you will make mistakes
Ennix
The Orange Theme@mcc I've been to a few Midwest Thanksgivings where that would've gone over very well!
Ratsnake
Stanley Nerdlinger II@mcc
But what if it was a really, really, good potato salad?
But what if it was a really, really, good potato salad?
Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️@mcc Well, no? If you say 我爱土豆沙拉 no Chinese speaker would really think you want to marry potato salad, I think? It only became romantic if the object of 爱 is a person or personified.
Joshua