Love in Japanese is 愛, read ai. Thirteen strokes, one character, with the heart radical 心 folded into the middle of it. That is the noun. In daily speech people reach for something smaller: 好き (suki, fond of) or 大好き (daisuki), while 愛してる (aishiteru, I love you) stays rare and weighty.
Love in Japanese
Love in Japanese is 愛 (ai), the kanji and the abstract noun. In conversation, though, the ordinary way to say you love someone or something is 好き (suki) or 大好き (daisuki), literally fond and very fond. 愛してる (aishiteru) is reserved for serious moments.
That gap matters. English uses one verb for pizza, parents, and partners. Japanese splits the job. 好き carries almost all of the everyday weight, 愛 sits above it as something closer to devotion, and 恋 (koi) covers the wanting, aching kind of love that comes at the start.
The Kanji for Love: 愛
- Character: 愛
- On’yomi: アイ (ai)
- Kun’yomi: いと(しい) (itoshii, dear or beloved), め(でる) (mederu, to admire). Dictionaries also list まな (mana), which survives in 愛娘 (manamusume, a cherished daughter). None of these is an official jōyō reading. In practice, 愛 is read ai.
- Stroke count: 13
- General meaning: love, affection, devotion, to cherish
- Radical: 心 (heart), Kangxi radical 61, tucked into the middle of the character rather than sitting at the side
The radical placement is unusual and worth noticing. Most characters that carry 心 wear it at the bottom, as in 思 (omou, to think), or compressed to 忄 on the left, as in 情 (feeling). 愛 buries it in the belly of the glyph, covered above and carried below.
Japanese Symbol for Love
The Japanese symbol for love is 愛, and it is built from four stacked parts. At the top sits 爫, a downward-turned hand. Under it comes 冖, a cover or lid. Then 心, the heart. At the bottom, 夂, a foot mid-step.
Japanese calligraphy teachers hand students a mnemonic for that arrangement: a hand reaching down to shelter a heart, and below it a foot that slows and turns back. Attention held, and a step that hesitates. Older forms of the character built on 心 with a different upper element, so this reading is a teaching image rather than strict paleography, but it captures how the modern glyph actually feels to write.
Visually, 愛 is top-heavy and then resolves. The upper strokes are short and crowded, the middle horizontal spans the full width, and the lower half opens out into the sweeping right diagonal of 夂. That final stroke is what gives the character its lift.
How to Write 愛 in Japanese
Thirteen strokes, written strictly top to bottom in four blocks.
Start with 爫 at the top: a short stroke slanting left, then three short downward strokes across the top, four strokes in all. Next comes 冖, the cover: a small dot, then a horizontal that bends down at the right corner, two strokes. Then the heart 心 in the middle, four strokes, its curved base first and the three dots after. Finish with 夂 at the bottom, three strokes, ending in the long diagonal that sweeps to the lower right.
The trap for beginners is the middle. 心 inside 愛 is squashed flat, wider than it is tall, and it loses the deep bowl it has when written alone. Keep the horizontal of 冖 as the widest line in the upper half and everything below it will sit correctly.
How to Say Love in Japanese
愛 is pronounced ai, which sounds exactly like the English word “eye.” Two vowels, one beat each, no stress. 愛してる is ai-shi-te-ru, roughly “eye-shee-teh-roo.” 好き is suki, said quickly as “skee,” with the first vowel almost swallowed.
Real sentences:
- 愛してる。(Aishiteru.) I love you. Weighty, rarely said out loud.
- 猫が大好きです。(Neko ga daisuki desu.) I love cats.
- 母の愛は深い。(Haha no ai wa fukai.) A mother’s love is deep.
- 二人は恋愛結婚をした。(Futari wa ren’ai kekkon o shita.) The two had a love marriage.
- あなたが好きです。(Anata ga suki desu.) I like you, or I love you, depending entirely on the moment.
The last one is the sentence that actually gets used in a confession. 好きです carries the full romantic charge in Japanese; you do not need to escalate to 愛 to be understood.
Words and Compounds With 愛
- 恋愛 (ren’ai): romantic love, 恋 and 愛 set side by side.
- 愛情 (aijou): affection, the warm feeling itself, used for parents and children as readily as for partners.
- 愛犬 (aiken): a beloved dog.
- 愛車 (aisha): a cherished car.
- 愛読書 (aidokusho): a favorite book, one you return to.
- 愛国心 (aikokushin): patriotism, literally love-country-heart.
- 愛娘 (manamusume): a cherished daughter, one of the few places the reading mana survives.
- 可愛い (kawaii): cute. The 愛 is right there in the middle of it.
That middle group is the useful clue. 愛 attaches to whatever you devote yourself to, not only to people. It is closer to devotion than to romance, the same instinct behind kodawari, the refusal to be casual about something you care for.
Love in Japanese Culture
The clearest annual expression of it is Tanabata, the star festival on 7 July. Orihime and Hikoboshi, the weaver and the cowherd, were separated across the Milky Way and are allowed one meeting a year. People write wishes on strips of paper and tie them to bamboo. It is a love story built around distance rather than possession, which is very much the register 愛 works in.
The character also had a national moment. In 2005 愛 was chosen as Japan’s Kanji of the Year, the character selected by public ballot to sum up the twelve months and brushed onto a huge sheet of paper by the head priest of Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto each December.
As a Tattoo
愛 works well as a single character. Thirteen strokes give it visual weight and a clear center of gravity, so it holds up at forearm scale and stays legible when it is small. It is also the most common kanji tattoo in the West, which cuts both ways: instantly readable, rarely surprising.
Never pair 愛 with 人. 愛人 (aijin) does not mean “the person I love.” It means a mistress or a kept lover. This is the single most common way this character goes wrong on skin. The same caution applies to any pairing you have not checked in a dictionary, because kanji compounds are words in their own right, not additions.
Watch the form. Mainland simplified Chinese writes this character as 爱, which drops the 心 component entirely. Japanese and traditional Chinese keep 愛 with the heart inside. If a flash sheet or a font shows 爱, it is not the Japanese form.
For style, a brushed semi-cursive rendering suits 愛 because the upper strokes want to flow; a printed mincho form looks colder but stays crisper over years of ink spread. Vertical placement along the spine or forearm follows how the character is actually written. Confirm with a native speaker before you ink.
Build and preview a design with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider symbolism in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
FAQ
How do you say love in Japanese?
The noun is 愛 (ai), pronounced like the English word “eye.” In practice people say 好き (suki) or 大好き (daisuki) for almost everything English calls love, from food to partners. 愛してる (aishiteru) means “I love you” and is used sparingly, at serious moments rather than in passing.
What is the kanji for love?
The kanji for love is 愛, read ai. It has 13 strokes and contains the heart radical 心, covered above by 冖 and carried below by 夂. It covers love, affection, and devotion, and it appears in words like 恋愛 (ren’ai, romantic love) and 愛情 (aijou, affection).
What is the Japanese symbol for love?
愛 is the symbol. Its parts are a downward hand 爫, a cover 冖, a heart 心, and a foot 夂. Japanese teachers gloss the arrangement as a hand shielding a heart above a step that slows and turns back. 愛 is a written character, not a decorative emblem, so it reads as a word to any Japanese speaker.
How many strokes does 愛 have?
Thirteen. They divide neatly into four blocks written top to bottom: four strokes for 爫, two for 冖, four for 心, and three for 夂. Beginners most often go wrong by writing the interior 心 at its normal proportions instead of flattening it to fit under the cover.
What is the difference between 愛 and 恋?
恋 (koi) is longing and infatuation, the love that wants something and usually belongs to the beginning of a relationship. 愛 (ai) is settled, giving love, and it stretches to family, pets, and devotion of any kind. The compound 恋愛 (ren’ai) joins both and is the ordinary word for a romantic relationship.
Is the kanji for love the same in Chinese and Japanese?
The Japanese form 愛 matches traditional Chinese exactly. Simplified Chinese uses 爱, which removes the 心 heart component from the middle. If you want the Japanese character, use 愛, and treat any design showing 爱 as a sign the source is not Japanese.