7 - Part one. What is it with this word called love?

Love is probably one of the most popular, and manipulated word in Western songs, poems, movies and books- but, do we truly know the meaning?  It is much easier to talk about heartaches and breakups than about positive love. Why is that? Because it is more complicated to communicate and put into words the positive feelings that other people arouse in us. When it comes to criticizing, hating, showing up our anger, our left side of the brain becomes terribly active and we turn into the poets and rappers of the new era! However, does "the cat got our tongues" if it is love what we want to express?

True or false, something I learnt from my Linguistics class at college is that a culture is somehow shaped by the richness of its vocabulary. There aren't many  words to describe snow in Spanish as it might snow only once or twice per year. However, the Eskimo language has around 50 words to describe it.

How many words does the English language have to describe love? Interesting...

Something that has always struck me is that Americans love their jobs, love popcorn, love their grandma, love their wives, love their jeans and love travelling to Miami. Isn´t it really complicated to understand them? It looks like they understand by context the level of “likeness” that “love” entails, but to the international community this can be very very tricky. Really, I don´t want my boyfriend to compare me with popcorn. And I don’t want him to love his grandma as he loves me.

I must admit I have always found myself at a loss when trying to express my feelings towards a native English speaker. Sometimes to say I love you is too much, but sometimes it is not enough. Mostly, because Spanish (from Spain, not South America) doesn´t overuse that word at all, which makes it more powerful when it is finally said. Me encantan los vaqueros, me gustan las palomitas, quiero a mi mujer y le tengo cariño a mi abuela. “I love you, my friend”, has caused me too much unnecessary trouble, because what I really meant was “te tengo cariño y te aprecio”. Where is the boarder, then?

At this point I might well agree with what Robert A. Johnson wrote in his book: “Of all the Western languages, English may be the most lacking when it comes to feeling”.

International love is not easy, despite what Pit-bull might have said, but still I´m totally up for it! :)

Let´s finish this with another short compilation of untranslatable words, this time related to love and feelings (See next post)