Amar is a strong word, that is, you should use it only when you really mean it. For example “I love chocolate” would be amo el chocolate and “I love playing tennis” would be amo jugar al tenis.īear in mind that using amar in these contexts means that you really, really, love it. Just like with te quiero, we can enhance the meaning of te amo by saying mucho (“a lot”), más que a nada (“more than anything”), or something similar.Īmar doesn’t have a second meaning, but unlike querer we can use it to say that we love something or doing something.

You can use it with friends, but this is pretty unusual. We may use it with our significant other, and with our close family.

VERY close friends (who are like family).

This doesn’t mean that we only use te amo romantically, but it is much more affectionate and shows a much closer relationship than te quiero. The main characters are standing in the rain, looking in each other’s eyes: that’s a te amo moment. Think about every romantic movie ever, you know the scene. Te amo in English would be the literal translation of “I love you,” but this expression is much stronger and romantic than te quiero. Or you could even say that you want to do something by saying: quiero jugar al tenis (“I want to play tennis”).īut when we say te quiero, it doesn’t mean “I want you ” as we said before, it means “I care about you” or “I love you.” When to Use Te Amo

The Spanish verb querer also means “to want”, but not in the sense of desire, as in “I want you.” You might say that you want chocolate, for example, using this verb: quiero chocolate.

What does te amo mean