What does "te quiero" really mean? Is Polish poorer than Spanish?

           Depending on the time zone the Valentine’s Day has ended or it is still going on. I got used to live mentally in different time zones so it doesn’t matter for me that where I am physically it’s already the 15^th of February. Let it be a Valentine’s post. But it won’t really be about romantic love, or at least not mainly. Although this day is commonly known as the day of lovers, in some countries, including Finland and many Latin America countries, it is also celebrated as the day of friendship. I find it, as many other people, a nicer and less “kitschy” way to spend it because, among other reasons, you don’t feel forced to have your “half-orange” and you can celebrate it with more people and show them that they are important. In Poland we do not spend it that way, maybe it would be nice to introduce it. In fact, I’ve been planning this post for a long time, but I didn’t expect to public it on this day and I wasn’t really going to mark this day in any way, nor with a single post on Facebook or something like that. But about 10 minutes ago I felt today’s a perfect time to write and post it so I will. If I spend this day without love and without friends, I will at least do something I love and write something in the subject. As I said it won’t be really about love, much about friendship and… linguistics. Yes, linguistics, one of the subjects that I love.

              I always admired people who asked what their favourite words in a given language are could give a bunch of examples without hesitate. I was never really thinking about languages in that way and thought that maybe I just don’t cherish them enough if I don’t have my own examples of favourite words. Actually it’s much more easier for me to point words that I detest than those that I love. Maybe it just shows my negativity, but it’s not the topic of this post. Anyway, I know which word, or to be more accurate, which phrase in Spanish is my favourite, the most fascinating and of the deepest meaning for me. It’s te quiero. Surprised? It may seem hackneyed and trivial to some of you, but I will soon prove you it’s not. What I want to enhance here is that I speak all the time about Mexican Spanish and my experience in Mexico. The meanings and collocations may and probably do differ depending on the country especially in Latin America vs. Spain.

             When we, non-Spanish native speakers, learn Spanish, we are taught that te quiero is the equivalent of I love you in English or kocham cię in Polish. Well, it is only in a way. The thing is that natural languages are never responding to each other in a scale 1:1, that is you cannot translate everything so directly and te quiero is exactly one example of it. Together with te quiero we learn te amo and are told that it’s basically the same, but te amo is stronger. It’s still just a surface.

           Kocham cię in Polish (my Mexican friends used to laugh at it because it reminds them of the verb coger – I won’t translate it ;P) is only the expression of a strong affection – between very fond lovers, close family or very close friends. It’s for a very close zone and you really don’t use it often. Actually you are very lucky if you use (and hear) it at all because you may not have anyone you love so much with response or not enough courage and openness to express it.

            I love you in English is used much more widely and commonly because people just don’t treat is as seriously as we treat kocham cię in Polish. Sometimes they almost “throw it” publicly in the air to a mum, a sister or to friends what we can see for example in some American TV shows. We DON’T do it with kocham cię in Poland if we are honest with our feelings and don’t just want to show off. We don’t throw it around, we value it and treat it seriously.

And then there’s a Spanish “equivalent” which is the title of this post. Soon after I came to Mexico, lived some time between Mexican people and made some friends I realized it cannot in any way be the equivalent of kocham cię because I don’t think that people I’ve known for some months as friends would tell it to me. Ok, Mexican people are affectionate, much more open etc., but still I knew it’s not an explanation here. What they meant was just friendship and kind of care. But they were only my guess and it was fascinating to me so I made a Google research. The answers I found was exactly what I thought (1 and 2): te quiero is an affection you feel for your friends, for your family or for your girlfriend/boyfriend. It could be better translated as I care about you. Here comes the question: so in ambiguous cases how do you tell between a friendly te quiero and a romantic te quiero? Well, I have no idea. I hope someone could explain it to me, too. Te amo means real love and you don’t use it often – only to someone you have a romantic relationship with when you really MEAN it, to your close family or a very close friend.

So I got an explanation and I knew that te amo is what kocham cię is Polish, but I was still wondering how the hell I would translate te quiero into Polish? My Mexican friend asked me once exactly the same question and I just had to said her while being a bit ashamed that… there is no translation. She was quite surprised and asked me if we don’t say to our friends in Poland that we love them. Well. No. You can say of course things like “I like you very much”, “You’re important to me”, “You can count on me” etc., but there is no straight translation of te quiero. There is no simple Polish phrase that would contain the whole beautiful meaning of it. To express the same feeling you would need at least one long sentence. That’s why I got so fond of Spanish te quiero. It allows me to express feelings I could have never expressed before. It shows affection and attachment, but they are not very big words and you don’t have to be afraid that the other person will run away or feel ashamed. It’s just so simple, warm and sweet, but not hackneyed as I love you.

But ok, if we lack it in Polish, does it mean that Polish is somehow poorer than Spanish? I swear you it’s not. It is beautiful in languages that each of them has words and phrases that are not easily translatable and explicable in other languages because they contain too much meaning and collocations in native speakers’ minds… Maybe we don’t know how to easily tell a friend what we feel for them, but we certainly know how to call a friend that is special to us. This is przyjaciel.

Przyjaciel is not just an English friend, because you can have many friends. Basically anyone you go for a beer with or only have on your Facebook list is your friend. And it is not amigo either, because amigo is more or less the same as friend in English. We do have in Polish words for this kind of relationship and they would be kolega, kumpel or znajomy (although the last one is more like acquaintance or conocido). But English and Spanish do not have straight equivalents for przyjaciel. Some Polish people overuse it and would call przyjaciel dozens of people in their life, but most people feel the real meaning and save this word for maybe 1, 2 or 4 people. Or even for no-one because they don’t feel there is someone that close for them. It is someone who broke the sometimes tough borderline of being just a friend, gained our deeper trust and got more access to our inner world than most people do. We can tell them our deep emotions, secrets and worries, can truly rely on them and they may feel even like a sister or a brother. And vice versa, of course. I really appreciate we have this word in Polish and I really used it few times in my life. Mostly when I was much younger, didn’t learn the meaning well yet and what I called przyjaźń (friendship) unfortunately ended after some time. That’s why now even if I would like to call someone in that way I’m afraid to do this because I don’t know if they share this feeling… This is how deep meaning it has.

So you see? There is no Polish equivalent of te quiero. There is no Spanish equivalent of przyjaciel. And what is more te quiero is not exactly what you feel for przyjaciel. Because I used and said te quiero in 7 months more times that I used and said przyjaciel during 26 years. All those differences, inexplicable meanings and depths of collocations is one of the things I love about learning and investigating languages and about making friends from different cultures. I hope I was able to share some of this affection of mine with you in this post because sharing my thoughts and feelings is one of the things I love about writing. If you want, please share your thoughts on the topic, say how you see those phrases and add something to my understanding of them because languages are infinite and they are something (including our mother tongue) we'll never learn to the end :).