Hello everyone! It’s February! Saint Valentine has just passed, but I think we all need some positivity and love, so I thought to continue the love strand and talk about some love expressions!

First of all let’s dive into what amore means in Italian. Amore does mean love, but it is usually used differently from English. Amore indicates the feeling you’ll feel for a romantic partner, or even the bond between parents and their child. It is not used to refer to the relationship between two friends. That’s amicizia, “friendship.” So far all good, right? But when we talk about amare, the verb “to love,” that’s where it gets complicated.

What do I mean? Well, “I love you” translates mainly in two ways: ti amo and ti voglio bene. You see, this is a huge difference. Ti amo is used mostly in a romantic way. You’ll say it to you partner, when you feel in love with them. You can hear some parents saying it to their children, but generally speaking, it’s less frequently used that way.  While ti voglio bene is used to express affection to friends, family, and anyone else you want really. It is not less warm or less deep than ti amo, it is just a different feeling for us. Saying ti voglio bene to your parent, to your best friend, still comes from the bottom of your heart. But as you can imagine, saying ti voglio bene and not ti amo to your partner or someone courting you is a big difference! In that case, ti voglio bene sounds more like “I love you as a friend.”

Now that we’ve made clear what amore and amare is in Italian, we can dive into some expressions tied to it! Probably the most used is still l’amore è cieco, “love is blind,” because as you know, love does not care about what a person looks like on the outside. But also because the person we are in love with seems completely different from us or a strange match, but that’s simply because Il cuore ha le sue ragioni e non intende ragione, “love has its reasons, but does not understand reason.” Yup, the brain tries to stop the heart, but the heart never listens. In fact, the saying goes Al cuor non si comanda, “You can’t command the heart,” because the heart will do whatever it wants anyway. Another classic is Il primo amore non si scorda mai, “You’ll never forget your first love.” I guess that’s for good or bad reasons nobody really forgets that powerful feeling of being in love with someone for the first time. And on that note, we also say that Amore non è senza amaro, “Love is not love without some bitterness.” Not that love must be bad, but let’s be honest, like everything in life, love too has some sad parts to it. If everything was always super happy, we would actually never be happy, right?

But enough with the “serious” expressions and let’s take a look at some that are a little lighter and more fun. My favorite: Sfortunato al gioco, fortunato in amore, “Unlucky in the games, lucky in love.” I say this is my favorite because I never win, so I must be really really lucky in my love life. Another one is Chi si odia si ama, “those who hate each other, love each other.” It implies that most of the times when you think you hate someone, the reality is that you really, deeply care about that person, and your “hate” might just be love undercover. It is mostly used to tease people, but hey, it has been true as well. Feelings are complex things and we don’t understand them very often right away. Then, the saying most people say when hearing two people fight L’amore non è bello se non è litigarello, “love is not fun, if it isn’t a bit fighty.” I like to think that it is just a way to normalize constructive discussions and disagreements in couples. Fighting is normal in couples, each part has their own mind, opinion and way of thinking and sometimes fights can be just an expression of a disagreement and actually be constructive. It is impossible to agree on everything in life. The important thing is that you talk, even litigare, “discuss,” and hear each other out. And here’s another funny little old saying: Nella guerra d’amore vince chi fugge, or more simply in amore vince chi fugge, “in the war of love, who flees wins.” Not sure this is an advice I will suggest you follow, but that’s what the popular tradition will tell you to do.

And these are just some expressions! What do you think? What’s your favorite? I would like to close with one quote I really like from a masterpiece, the Divine Comedy: L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle – “the love that moves the sun and all the other stars.” For Dante, love is the mechanism that moves the entire life, the entire world, the entire universe. Love is so powerful that it is capable of everything. I like this quote because it reminds me that love can really accomplish incredible things. And that’s my wish for you this month: amate! Love!