The Things You Love
“An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.” - Carlos Castaneda
When it comes to Japanese, the term “love” is a bit strange by Western standards. Saying “I love you” is a lot more rare in Japan than it would be in say, America. It’s mostly a cultural thing, and although this is changing with the modern times, you still won’t hear it much. By saying “I love you” out loud, you’re robbing it of its meaning, which is why the Japanese have to rely on telepathy (in other words, a concept known as 無言了解 AKA “Wordless Understanding”)
Instead, though, we’re going to learn the next closest thing, the word “like” (along with a stronger variation). While you learn how to talk about the things you like, you’ll also be practicing what we did in the previous chapter, with は and が. Told you that you’d get a lot of practice.