What if you are in an exotic land and the only thing keeping you away from finding true love, is language? Here's a cut-and-keep guide that lets you say,u00a0I Love You, like a pro in 36 languages.

Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar were on the right track when they crooned, "Gujarati maan bole tane prem karun chhoon...".

Yet one wonders about the success rate of the, "Hum tum pey itna dying, jitna sea mein pani lying..." line that follows.

That's the thing with love though. You tend to either get tongue-tied or carried away. They say it's excruciating to tell someone you love them, and not to hear it said back.


In Russian
Tennis star Anna Kournikova to singer Enrique Iglesias
Likely to say: "Ya lyublyu tebya" (pronounced Ya l-you-bl-you tibya)

And they're right, we concede. So, it does take a lot of courage to tell someone how you feel. But isn't it worth it, whatever the response?

As a wise man once wrote: "...and pity us all / Who vainly the dreams of youth recall / For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: "It might have been!" Besides, in case you feel the angrezi phrase has lost its essence, thrown around as casually as it is these days, here are 36 new ways of saying, "I love you".

Here's how to keep it simple, in the language of your choice.

>> British men say, "I love you" quicker than women do: As per the data collected by UK's Stella Magazine and YouGov, in November 2009, men take an average of 7 months to declare they love their partner, while women take longer.
>> Indians are most committed love-makers: According to a 2005 Durex Global sex survey, Indians had the fewest sexual partners with an average of 3 as compared to the global average of 9.
>> The Beatles song Can't Buy Me Love sold 940,225 copies in the US the very day it was released back in 1964. Over 3 million copies were sold by the end of the year. The record remains unchallenged to date.

Speak Up!

In Marathi
Likely to say: "Mi tula prem karto"

In French
"Je vous aime"

Hindi
Main tumse pyaar karta hoon/ karti hoon

Gujarati
Hoon tane prem karu chhoon

Assamese
Moi tomak bhal pau

Kannada
Naa ninna preetisuve

Malayalamu00a0u00a0
Njyaan ninne' preetikyunnu

Telugu
Nenu ninnu premistunnanu

Punjabi
Mai taunu pyar karda

Bengali
Aami tumake bhaalobashi

Konkani
Hanv tukka preeti karta

Nepali
Ma timilai maya garchhu

Sindhi
Maa tokhe pyar kando ahyan/kandi ahyan

Urdu
Mujhe tumse mohabbat hai

Sanskrit
Twayi snihyaami

Manipuri
Aina nangbu nunshi

Oriya
Mu tumaku bhala paye

Tamil
Naan unnai khadalikkeren

Maithili (Bihar)
Hum tohra sa prem kare chhi

Kashmiri
Me chhu tse sity ashq

Bhojpuri
Ham aap say pyar kareni

Listen In
u00a0
Mandarin (Chinese dialect)
Wo ai ni
(Listen to the sound and imagine it's Hindi, if you will: "voh aayi nahin". Superstitious people may want to steer clear of this one.)

Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)
Mama oyata arderyi

Japanese
Watashi-wa anata-wo ai shite imasu

Burmese
Chit pa de

Swahili (East Africa)
Na ku pen da (followed by the person's name)

Indonesian
Saya cinta padamu
(The Indonesian language takes a strangely relaxed approach to grammar and by merely repeating the word Cinta, pronounced "chinta", twice, you may imply that you have many lovers.)

Yoruba (Nigeria, Africa)
Mo ni ife e

Portuguese
Amo-te
(If you are reading from a travel guide though, be very careful: "Amou" means "loved" past tense; here's a Portuguese word you could use if you confused one for the other: Tchau, meaning "Bye")

Polish
Kocham ciebie (to a man), kocham cie (to a girl); pronounced: koham chiebie and koham chie

Hakka (Chinese dialect)
Ngai on ni (Pronounced: guy on knee; almost prophetic, one might say.)

Thai
Chan rug khun (to a man)/ Phom rug khun (to a girl)

Armenian
Yes kez si'rumem

Hungarian
Szerlekret; pronounced: Sair ret lek

Korean
Dangsinul saranghee yo

Jordanian
Shtitalic el yom

Pashto (Afghanistan)
Za tasara meena kawam

Italian
Ti amo

German
Ich liebe dich
(It's important to note that this phrase can never be used in a casual manner, like its English counterpart. We're also guessing you can goof up that last word, so we'd recommend getting German diction lessons before you attempt this one.)

Lebanese
Behibak (to a man)/Behibek (to a woman)
(This one's simply too close for comfort.)