Te quiero, pero no te amo

Te quiero, pero no te amo
 

Lo he oído en una telenovela. ?Cúal es la diferencia entre los dos?

In this case, that there is a dear affinity, but it isn't love like for lovers.

I love you, but not like that... if you know what I mean by "that" ;)

I wonder why they got married then...(and it wasn't necessary. She wasn't pregnant or anything.)

Precisely because it is a "telenovela" or "culebrón" as we call it here, were the creators adds drama to everything. You will find a lot of situations like "Why she got married with this sadistic guy if she was pregnant of that other good guy that she loved so much." and so.

Apart from the possibility Chileno described, there is also a matter of intensity.
"Querer" is much less than "amar" when talking about a love relationship.
In a telenovela, she might have thought she was in love enough to get married, until she met someone else with whom she'd fall deeply in love. :D

So is it kind of insulting to say to someone "Te quiero" instead of "Te amo"?

Not at all.

What happens is that "te quiero" and "te amo" both mean "I love you", but it would be difficult to tell a friend "te amo".
"Te quiero then is used most for everything and people parse it.

If I told you "te quiero" is because I appreciate you as a friend, but if I tell my girlfriend "te quiero" I really mean "te amo".

Does it make any sense?

:)

Estaba manejando con mi amigo, y yo escuche muchas veses le dice mi amigo, "te quiero y te amo" a su esposa porque se le olvidó su cumpleaño

Corrections please!

Be careful not to overuse the progressive tense. This is a common mistake for English-speaking students of Spanish. There are lots of threads that mention when it is proper to use the progressive (or continuous) tense in Spanish.

WOW! Ok. I will keep practicing.:thumbsup:

The difference is that you dear to the person or women but anyway you don't love to the person, you don't grasp to feel nothing of love for her.

I hope you can understand me clarify.

and what about "Te enamoro"?

Te enamoro.
= I'm making you fall in love. (I'm winning your heart.)

Me enamoro de ti.
= I'm falling in love with you.

Ah, ok. Thank you.

I think this is the first time I don't agree with Rusty's corrections :)

"Iba en carro con mi amigo y lo escuché muchas veces decirle a su esposa "te quiero y te amo" porque se le había olvidado su cumpleaños.

"Iba en carro": In Spanish only the driver "maneja", the others "van en el carro/coche/automóvil"

"escuché": The preterite must be used here because it's an action that only takes place once.

"Se le había olvidado": It's talking about the past. The Past Perfect sounds better. I'm not sure the Preterite is correct, it sounds like translated literally from English.

:)

I'm really not challenging your Spanish here :eek: but I'm puzzled. You say the above when the context is "yo escuche muchas veses" :thinking::thinking:

In English, the preterite would make no sense. Either the perfect (I have heard many times) or even an imperfect (Often I used to hear ..). Not that this is an argument for a perfect in Spanish though, the differences are baffling. :(

Dear perikles, I don't understand what you're saying. Why would you use the subjunctive there? escuche :confused:

Let me see..

The first verb must be in the imperfect (iba) because it's an action that takes place in the past at the same time as another action. The second verb is in the preterite because it's an action that happened once. I assume this because of the fact that a person only has one birthday every year.

Even if it's not a one time action, let's say I drove with my friend several times and he kept saying "I love you" over and over, "escuchar"would then be in the imperfect:

"Iba en carro con mi amigo y lo escuchaba muchas veces decirle a su esposa...."

In this case I'd add something to the sentence like "Siempre que iba en carro con mi amigo lo escuchaba...." because otherwise it sounds weird.

Of course in English the preterite would make sense:

"I was driving with my friend and many times I heard him say to his wife...."

What's wrong with that?

:)

Just chiming in ...

The preterite sounds good to my ears in the English version of the sentence.
I thought the preterite should have been changed to the imperfect because of the 'muchas veces' phrase. However, I now agree with the changes that Luna Azul has suggested.

I copied the original (incorrect) text from post no. 8, and not your correction above. :rolleyes: What I didn't understand is how you can claim "it's an action that only takes place once" when it's escuché muchas veces. The "muchas veces" kind of indicates more than once. :D :thinking:

The action that takes place once is the fact that I drove in the car with my friend:).

Adding "siempre" to the sentence, as I did in one of my examples, indicates that the action takes place several times, which was not the case in the original sentence. Therefore I assumed it was only once. :)

It's correct in Spanish to use the preterite with "muchas veces".

"Fuí a ese sitio muchas veces"
"me llamó varias veces"

You say the preterite wouldn't make sense in English. What tense would you use? ;)