Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: una traduzione di "Ti voglio bene"

What does "Ti voglio bene"? I came across it in a variety of situations in
Italy recently, and I'm a bit confused.
thanks,
raoul

 
It's similar to "I love you", but not quite so strong. 
An Italian child would say "Ti voglio bene, mamma" where an English
child would say "I love you, Mummy".
"Ti amo" is said to people you're in love with.
-- 
Mary

Italy recently, and I'm a bit confused.
Welcome!
This is not an easy issue.
"ti voglio bene" can be the English "I love you" or "I'm very fond of
you".
IIRC in English you can say "I love you" to your parents or children
but in Italian you can't, you have to say "ti voglio bene". In Italian
"I love you" is "ti amo" and it has only the meaning of "I am in love
with you".
You can say "ti voglio bene" to a friend but it's quite "strong"
(being a male I can hardly find one situation where I would say "ti
voglio bene" to a male friend).
You can say "ti voglio bene" to your bf/gf.
"ti voglio bene" is less strong than "ti amo". When you start a
relationship with someone it's easy to say "ti voglio bene", but
before saying "ti amo" normally you want to be sure you really feel it
and that the relationship is not only affair, but it's going
somewhere.
I remember a friend of mine who was shocked up because he was having
an affair with an English girl, and after a week she said "I love you"
to him. He told me that he "le voleva bene" but, you know, "amarla"
it's quite a different story. :)
Hope this helps.
You can also use 
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en
The "ti voglio bene" issue has been debated many times on this NG. :)
Sebastiano
-- 
Por una mirada, un mondo;
por una sonrisa, un cielo;
por un beso... yo no sé
qué te diera por un beso.

 wrote in message
news:3E92E728...@privacy.net...


Thanks, that clears things up a lot.
Welcome aboard from me too. 
Could you please remember to post your replies under the message you
are replying to, not over it, and trim the unnecessary bits? Thank
you. Most people here will want you lots of bene for that.
Ciao,
-- 
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching
http://web.tiscali.it/alfabeto_auschwitz/index.htm

 wrote in message
news:fgp59vc0j7as7cq1h...@4ax.com...

Ah, that's even better. I was vaguely confused because someone sent me it in
a text message and "I love you" would have been scary, and "I want you well"
clearly wasn't the correct translation.
raoul

 clearly wasn't the correct translation.
Be scared, indeed!

 a text message and "I love you" would have been scary
Chicken! :-)
-- 
Mary

 clearly wasn't the correct translation.
Well, start getting scared (or pleased, depends on who's this 'someone').
Even if it's less strong than "I love you" it doesn't mean you say that to
every person you met.
Giovanni Bajo

further complications:
I replied, signing of with "ti voglio bene", and she replied with, amongst
other things, "anch'io vi voglio bene". Does this mean she thinks that
someone else (perhaps one of our mutual friends) is here with me? or does
making the "ti" plural have some surprising idiomatic effect?
raoul


Which part of Italy does she come from?
-- 
Mary

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:b6uug3$ooh$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...

No. She's referring to more than one person without any doubt (unless it's a
typo, but it would be strange).
Now, I'd rather translate it as "I have/had a good time with you, it's nice
to have met you", and such: I can't see love-related meanings anymore.
Of course, it's just an interpretation. That sentence can be very confusing
for us italians too, I got confused several times. Italian girls can play
with it quite well ;)
Giovanni Bajo

 wrote in message
news:3E92FEF9...@privacy.net...

The North. Imperia, to be precise..

 wrote in message
news:M7Dka.18661$DT4.5...@twister1.libero.it...

Thanks for that explanation.  Perhaps I'll slip in "Ti amo" next time and
see if she thinks I've got linguistically confused or what... :)

 The North. Imperia, to be precise..
Then I agree with Giovanni, she's definitely talking about more than one
person ("I'm very fond of you all").
-- 
Mary

 wrote in message
news:3E93026F...@privacy.net...

ah well, at least I don't have to be scared...



Is it an SMS? If it is an SMS and she is using the T9 imput sistem
(the dictionary), the vi/ti is a common mistake.
To obtain "ti" you have to press 8 and 4 and on the display appears
"vi", then you have to change word and the second one is "ti", and
then "tg", "th", and so on.
Another common mistakes:
in instead of io
ai instead of ci
Of course, if it's not an SMS she's clearly referring to more than
one, because on the keyboard the "t" and the "v" are not close and it
can't be a typo.


 wrote in message
news:oh369vsqvbaonglcu...@4ax.com...

ah ha! it is an sms, and her phone is reasonably modern, so it presumably
has predictive texting. Perhaps there's still hope. I'm trying to push her
onto communicating through the less expensive medium of email, so I guess
I'll see then what she really means.
Thanks a lot,
raoul

 I'll see then what she really means.
And you? What do you mean? Or is it only her intention that's important?

 wrote in message
news:b6v8s7$9ljq3$1...@ID-55125.news.dfncis.de...

I have no idea what I mean. Quite possibly I'll never see her again, since I
don't really want to go back to where she lives, and it's only vaguely
possibly that she'll come here. I only knew her (and only in a friendly way)
for a couple of days. I don't know...

 see if she thinks I've got linguistically confused or what... :)
Be careful though, that means exactly "I love you, I want to stay with you,
I need you" or whatever. Actually, it's pretty scaring to say "ti amo" after
only two days. If you want to say something along those lines, you can try
with "mi piaci un sacco" (i really like you). That's better I believe.
Giovanni Bajo

This thread is hilarious (but so sweet).  If the girl in question could
only see it...!
The thread started off in a typical macho way, with the men saying
things like "be scared" and Raoul himself saying it would be "scary" if
this girl was declaring love for him.
But then the tone changed - It started off subtlely when Raoul
'jokingly' said:
" Perhaps I'll slip in "Ti amo" next time and see if she thinks I've got
linguistically confused or what... :)"
It soon became apparent that Raoul wanted it to be "ti" instead of "vi",
and became somewhat disappointed when the possibility arose that she
*wasn't* saying she loved him.
Then a lifeline:  a technological screw-up - the autocomplete of her
mobile phone might have caused this serious confusion.  A sweet
demonstration of cameradery ensued, with the other guys suddenly feeling
compelled to join him in his plight, frantically grabbing their mobile
phones to determine whether or not 't' could have been the intended typo
instead of 'v'.  So all was not lost and indeed la signorina could've
been saying 'ti'.  Raoul could barely hide his happiness stating (I
quote) "ah ha! it is an sms ... Perhaps there's still hope ..."
How dramatically things changed in the course of one NG thread! :-))))
;-p

> How dramatically things changed in the course of one NG thread! :-))))
Jo? Non c`era una 'Jo' che scriveva copioni per Beverly Hills 90210?

heh. Clearly I revealed far too much about my self in the course of this
thread... sadly, I think your observations are probably pretty much right,
though wouldn't you be scared if someone you'd barely known for 2 days
declared "Ti amo"?
raoul

 Chicken! :-)
traduci pls

 The thread started off in a typical macho way (...)
non so neppure cosa voglia dire, figurati...
.
.
.
.
;)


Vigliacco...
-- 
Mary

traduci pls
In inglese "chicken" è l'equivalente dell'italiano "pollo", quando si
parla del volatile, e di "coniglio", ovvero vigliacco.
Il non aver coraggio si dice, in italiano, non aver fegato, in inglese
si usa "stomach" o il generico "guts". :)
Sebastiano/qaamuws


 Vigliacco...
merci
nota: rispondo a Mary per tenere il livello del 3d! ;)

 non so neppure cosa voglia dire, figurati...
È semplice, tutto che è diverso dal modo in cui pense la ragazza che parli nel
momento, è 'macho'.

 wrote in
message news:b71ljs$a48b9$2...@ID-55125.news.dfncis.de...

buona!

declared "Ti amo"?
Indeed. And yet, it seems to terrify the male portion of the
population much more than it does the female. Go figure :-)
Ciao,
-- 
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching
http://web.tiscali.it/alfabeto_auschwitz/index.htm

> Jo? Non c`era una 'Jo' che scriveva copioni per Beverly Hills 90210?
I wish ...

 wrote in message
news:b7152j$c4u$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...

Ah ... but why the disappointment when you were re-assured she probably
didn't mean to say 'I love you' ...? ;-)

population much more than it does the female. Go figure :-)
A friend of mine in Rome was proposed to after a week. She said yes.
Is that more or less strange than "ti amo" after 2 days?
-- 
Adam Atkinson (
gh...@mistral.co.uk
) But what *IS* the internet? It's
the largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive symmetric
closure of the relationship "can be reached by an IP packet from".

 Is that more or less strange than "ti amo" after 2 days?
Aahh .. Italian guys... :-)  I once met a guy in Florence who declared
his love for me after 3 days and decided to take me to meet his family.
I was received a little cautiously at first, but after a day or two his
mother was very sweet and welcoming to me.  Thing is, he'd 'forgotten'
to tell me that he had a fiancee for the last 5 years (also a foreigner,
who happened to be on holidays for a few weeks) and the reason I was
suddenly being encouraged to visit more often by his Mum was because she
hated his fiancee!
I could only conclude that Italian guys are either untrustworthy rats
... or they're soooo romantic they just want to make every girl they
meet feel special ... ?!
In any case, it will remain a very 'enlightening' and memorable event in
my life! :-)))

my life! :-)))
I'm sure it will.
-- 
Adam Atkinson (
gh...@mistral.co.uk
)
Only some kind of a numbskull thinks he knows things about things he
knows nothing about. (Amy Archer)

 meet feel special ... ?!
Come on, obviously the latter. You shouldn't really believe someone who
falls in love after two days (unless it's me, but hey ;)
Giovanni Bajo

 population much more than it does the female. Go figure :-)
Because we (men) all know that we lie when we say so, while women don't lie.
So better be scared. On the contrary, women think it's true, so they are
happy about it. Go figure... ;)
Giovanni


You got me... though there is a difference between "I love you" and a more
'matey' kind of "luv ya". The former, I still believe, would have been
scary, but the second would have been nice.
raoul

Is that more or less strange than "ti amo" after 2 days?
"That" being the proposition, or the reply?


falls in love after two days...
That's right. It's taken them far too long.


 "That" being the proposition, or the reply?
Either or both, really.