What kinds of love are hardest to recognize—because English has no name for them?

How “untranslatable” love words expose feelings you’ve had all along

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Big-picture framing

Many of the kinds of love English has no word for are not exotic new emotions; they’re feelings you’ve already had but never learned to name. When language only gives us “romantic,” “friend,” “family,” or “it’s complicated,” the emotional in-between spaces get blurred or dismissed. Other cultures label those spaces precisely—with single words for pre-love, aching love, and interdependent love that English needs full sentences to explain. When you borrow those words, you’re not being pretentious; you’re giving your own experience a clearer mirror. The more accurately you can name a feeling, the more wisely you can act on it.

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Why some kinds of love stay invisible in English

English is rich in love content—songs, shows, TikToks—but surprisingly poor in love categories. We basically get:

• Romantic love
• Family love
• Friendship
• Self-love

Everything else gets tossed into the catch-all bin of “messy,” “drama,” or “mixed signals.” It’s like trying to paint with only four colors when your inner life is closer to a 64-crayon box.

Other languages carve love up differently. Greek has agápē, philía, érōs, storgē. Japanese, Portuguese, Tagalog, Arabic, and many Indigenous languages go even further, naming very specific emotional flavors. Those words don’t mean people there feel more; they just notice more precisely.

Think of “untranslatable” love words as emotional highlighters. The feelings were already written into your life; the vocabulary just makes them easier to see on the page.

Three kinds of love English struggles to name

1. Love you feel arriving (pre-love)

Sometimes you meet someone and your whole body quietly says,
“Not yet… but soon.”

In Japanese, koi no yokan (恋の予感) means the premonition that you’re going to fall in love with someone—not love at first sight, but love at second, third, or seventeenth sight. It’s grounded, almost calm: “Something is coming, and I’m oddly okay with that.”

In Tagalog, kilig captures the fizzy thrill of attraction—the butterflies, the squeals, the giddy messages to your group chat. It’s joy without a plan.

English stretches for phrases like:

• “Instant chemistry”
• “I just knew”
• “I have a crush”

…but we don’t clearly separate the quiet inevitability of koi no yokan from the electric, soda-bubble feeling of kilig.

Real-world snapshot:
Think about a colleague you met and immediately thought, “We’re going to be important to each other. I don’t know how yet.” That’s koi no yokan. Now contrast it with the barista you giggle about because they remember your order and your heart tap-dances—that’s kilig. Same “crush zone,” entirely different kinds of love-in-progress.

Key idea: Pre-love is still love. Treating it as a valid stage—rather than either “soulmate” hype or “just a phase”—lets you move slower, kinder, and more honestly.

2. Love that aches, but stays

Some love doesn’t live in presence; it lives in absence.

In Portuguese, saudade is the sweet ache of missing someone or something beloved that’s gone—but not gone from you. It can be for a person, a place, a season of your life, even a version of yourself.

In Arabic, ya’aburnee literally means “you bury me” and is said to someone you love so much you’d rather die first than live without them.

In Welsh, hiraeth is a deep homesickness for a home that might never return—or maybe never quite existed anywhere but your bones.

English attempts:

• “I miss you so much it hurts.”
• “I don’t know who I’d be without you.”

But notice we need entire sentences, often wrapped in apology or drama. These other languages give you a single emotional handle you can grab in a second.

Key idea: Longing isn’t love’s opposite. Longing is a way love continues when touch, time, or geography say it shouldn’t.

3. Love that depends, intertwines, and includes

English culture often treats dependence as a red flag—“needy,” “clingy,” “codependent.” Other traditions name a softer, healthier version.

In Japanese, amae (甘え) is the desire to lean on someone and be received with warmth: to be tired, small, even childish, and still be lovingly held. It only works when there’s mutual trust.

In Chinese, yuanfen (缘分) gestures at the sense of fated connection—relationships that feel improbably, almost cosmically aligned.

In many Indigenous traditions, like the Lakota phrase mitákuye oyás’iŋ (“all my relations”), love isn’t confined to partners or blood relatives. It extends to animals, land, ancestors, future generations. Love is the web, not just one strand.

English mostly rounds these into:

• “Support system”
• “Chemistry”
• “Chosen family”

Helpful terms—but thin compared to the lived texture of amae, yuanfen, or all-my-relations love.

Key idea: Needing someone does not automatically equal unhealthiness. Sometimes dependence, fate, and more-than-human kinship are exactly how whole, resilient love shows up.

Are these words really “untranslatable”?

Linguists like to say no word is truly untranslatable—given enough English, you can explain saudade or amae. And that’s true.

But that’s also the point.

When a culture gives a feeling a word, it’s quietly declaring:

• “This matters.”
• “We see it often enough to name it.”
• “We want people to talk about it easily.”

In English, you often need a long explanation—or an “I know this sounds weird, but…” preface—to describe a love that other languages name in a single breath.

These words aren’t magical. They’re practical. They give dignity to feelings we’d otherwise second-guess, minimize, or mislabel as “nothing serious.”

What changes when you can name these loves?

When you can say,
“That wasn’t ‘just a crush’; it was kilig,”
or
“I’m living with saudade for that past version of us,”

you stop gaslighting yourself.

You’re more likely to:

• Set boundaries that match the real intensity of what you feel
• Grieve more honestly, without pretending you’re “over it”
• Allow yourself mutual dependence, not just radical self-reliance
• Notice non-romantic loves that are just as defining as your big relationships

Language doesn’t replace the heart’s wisdom—but it sharpens it. Naming your unnamed loves is like upgrading from a blurry camera to one that finally focuses.

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Bringing it together (and what to do next)

Many of the hardest loves to recognize are the ones English doesn’t label well: the arriving love of koi no yokan and kilig, the aching love of saudade and hiraeth, and the intertwined love of amae, yuanfen, and “all my relations.” Once you recognize these as legitimate kinds of love—not glitches in the romantic/friendship matrix—your past and present relationships start to look very different.

If this landed for you, keep going: borrow words from other languages, but mainly borrow their permission to feel precisely. Journal about them. Use them with trusted friends. Let them reshape how you talk about “crushes,” “exes,” “home,” and “need.”

And if you want to keep expanding your emotional vocabulary, follow QuestionClass’s Question-a-Day at questionclass.com—one small daily prompt to help you see your inner life in higher resolution.

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 Bookmarked for You

Here are three books to deepen your understanding of these unnamed loves:

Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders – A beautifully illustrated tour of untranslatable words (including many about love) that will give you new labels for old feelings.

The Anatomy of Dependence by Takeo Doi – A psychological exploration of amae that challenges Western assumptions about independence and emotional need.

All About Love by bell hooks – A powerful reflection on love as a practice of clarity, courage, and care across romance, family, and community.

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 QuestionStrings to Practice

“QuestionStrings are deliberately ordered sequences of questions in which each answer fuels the next, creating a compounding ladder of insight that drives progressively deeper understanding. What to do now: use this anytime a relationship feels ‘undefined’ but emotionally loud.”

Naming-the-Nuance String
For when you sense “something more” but don’t know what to call it:

“What exactly am I feeling—can I describe it in two simple sentences?” →
“Does this feeling come more from presence, absence, dependence, fate, or shared purpose?” →
“Which word or phrase (English or borrowed) comes closest—kilig, saudade, amae, something else?” →
“How would I treat this person or memory differently if I honored this as a real kind of love?” →
“What is one small action or conversation that would make that honor visible this week?”

Try weaving this into your journaling or late-night talks. You may discover you’ve been loving in ways English never really equipped you to admit.

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In the end, exploring the kinds of love English has no name for is less about being poetic—and more about being precise with your own heart.