Many will agree that French is the language of love. Most will agree that Paris is the city of love. So what could be more romantic than hearing or uttering I love you in French?

In this post we’ll learn how to say I love you in French, along with numerous variations. We’ll also go over ways to tone it down and just say I like you in French, and we’ll see plenty of other useful love words in French in case you’re tempted to date or flirt in French.

Who knows, maybe it’ll be un coup de foudre, or love at first sight. Or as a direct translation, you’ll be hit by a thunderbolt!

How do you say I love you in French?

Simply put, I love you in French is je t’aime.

The essential verb here is aimer, which translates into English as both to love and to like. This ambiguity can obviously get tricky when trying to express mild, average, or strong feelings towards someone.

With this in mind, what does je t’aime mean in English? Let’s break it down in the next couple of sections, starting with a look at the grammar. Then we’ll move on to how to say I love you in French with a bunch of lovey expressions, we’ll see some low-key alternatives, and then how to tone it down and say I like you in French. For even more inspiration, we recommend our post with 30 classic love quotes in French.

Je t’aime meaning: Grammar

Before we see how to use this essential expression, let’s look at its grammar.

The word for to love in French is aimer, so once conjugated, I love is j’aime. If we look at our je t’aime translation word-for-word, you might say I you love in English.

The direct object of my love is you, which in French is te. Since French direct object pronouns are placed before the conjugated verb, our phrase becomes je t’aime, meaning I love you.

We can even change the direct object pronoun for vous, giving us the option of je vous aime. This is best suited for the plural you, as opposed to the formal singular you, because if we love someone we should already be using the informal you with them!

I love you very much in French

Now let’s see a bunch of sweet phrases using je t’aime in French. Use these to make sure your cutie knows you’re obsessed with them, in a healthy way of course! These are all very romantic, implying very strong feelings of love.

• Je t’aime comme un fou / une folle. – I love you like a madman / a madwoman.

• Je t’aime à la folie. – I love you like crazy.

• Je t’aime passionnément. – I love you passionately.

• Je t’aime de tout mon coeur. – I love you with all of my heart.

• Je t’aime de tout mon âme. – I love you with all of my soul.

• Je t’aime pour toujours. – I love you forever.

• Je t’aime plus que tout au monde. – I love you more than anything in this world.

• Je t’aime (très) fort. – I love you (very) strongly.

I am in love with you in French

The French word for love is amour, which is such a lovely word it’s at the top of our list of beautiful French words. But the English concept of in love in French cannot be translated directly as “en amour.” Instead we use the adjective amoureux to express this sentiment, which becomes amoureuse when it’s a woman feeling the love.

• Hélène, je suis amoureux de toi. Quitte la Sparte avec moi ! – Helen, I am in love with you. Run away from Sparta with me!

• Paris, je suis amoureuse de toi aussi. Mais mon mari, le roi de Sparte, risque d’être jaloux. – Paris, I’m in love with you too. But my husband, the king of Sparta, will probably be jealous.

I’m crazy about you in French

You may have noticed that several of the je t’aime expressions above make some reference to craziness. Isn’t love a form of madness, after all? If you want to be clear on this with someone, you can just tell them you’re crazy about them! This works the same way in French as in English, with some serious meaning while still allowing us to avoid using the L word.

The adjective for crazy in French is fou, which becomes folle in its feminine form.

• Je suis fou de toi, Juliette. – I am crazy about you, Juliette.

• Mais Roméo, je suis folle de toi aussi ! – But Roméo, I’m crazy about you too!

I like you in French

So far, every je t’aime meaning we’ve seen has implied deep romantic love. But if aimer also means to like, how do you say I like you in French?

Well in addition to the context, it’s all about the adverbs. By choosing the right words to modify je t’aime, we can really temper the depth of feelings we express. Believe it or not, by adding adverbs that appear quite positive, we’re actually toning down our love’s strength!

The most common adverbs we use with je t’aime in French are beaucoup, meaning a lot, and bien, meaning well. That’s right, even though the direct translation of je t’aime beaucoup in French is I love you a lot, the true meaning is closer to I like you. The same goes for je t’aime bien. Either one can simply mean I really like you, without the added weight of deep love.

• Je t’aime beaucoup, Thomas, mais pas comme ça. – I like you a lot, Thomas, but not like that.

• Je t’aime bien, Amélie. Veux-tu manger au resto ensemble demain soir ? – I really like you, Amélie. Would you like to go out to dinner together tomorrow night?

• Félicitations pour vos fiançailles ! Je vous aime beaucoup, mes amis ! – Congratulations on your engagement! I love you lots, my friends!

• Je t’aime bien, Alex. J’espère que tu puisses venir à notre soirée ! – I like you a lot, Alex. I hope you can come to our party!

So, to keep relations in the friendzone while remaining sincere in your respect for the person, stick with je t’aime beaucoup or je t’aime bien. If you’re familiar with Spanish, these versions vs je t’aime are comparable to te quiero vs te amo.

A crush in French

Most of us have experienced this inexplicable feeling, where there’s some serious interest in someone before we even get to know each other much. It’s not love, it’s a crush! The French use this exact same word to mean the exact same thing. Un crush is a masculine noun, regardless of the gender of the person it describes.

• Mon crush au festival était la fille aux cheveux roses. – My crush at the festival was the girl with pink hair.

We already learned un coup de foudre at the start of this post, which translates literally as a thunderbolt. We use this expression with the preposition pour to mean to have a crush on.

• Je crois que j’ai un coup de foudre pour ton colocataire. – I think I have a crush on your flatmate.

• J’aime bien Laura, mais rien de grave. C’est juste un coup de foudre. – I really like Laura, but it’s nothing too serious. It’s just a crush.

The formal word for a crush in French is un béguin, but this isn’t really used much anymore.

• C’est mignon de voir mes petits enfants avec leurs béguins à l’école. – It’s cute to see my grandkids with their crushes at school.

Finally, we’ll mention the quintessential unromantic crush of our times: un match. Yep, you’re on les applis de rencontre, or dating apps, and you’ve both swiped right. «C’est un match !» We even use this English word as a French verb in this context, and every once in a while matcher may even lead from coup de foudre to amour.

• J’ai matché avec trois mecs, mais personne n’a répondu. – I matched with three guys, but none responded.

If you want more terminology for different types of relationships in French, we have a whole section covering the world of couples in French in our post on family vocab.

I love you in French: Informal options

The expressions on the last list are well-suited for friends, while those on our first list are all pretty strong and best used in one-on-one contexts. If you’re hanging out with your sweetie among other friends and still want to express your love without having them tell you two to get a room, here are a few lighter options for how to say I love you in French.

Simply abbreviating je t’aime to j’t’aime adds a touch of familiarity to any of our options, whether the ones we’ve seen already or the ones we’ll look at now.

Cheri, Chérie: Darling in French

Many couples have pet names that they only use with each other, like sweetie or darling. Since these also imply some sense of love and affection, we’ll mention the most common one here: cheri can be used on a man, while its equivalent for a woman is chérie. Nobody will bat an eye when they hear you using these on each other. For a bunch of sappier options to use one-on-one, check out our post on French terms of endearment!

• Chéri, mes parents viennent prendre l’apéro ce soir. Peux-tu passer à la fromagerie, s’il te plaît ? / Bien sûr, chérie. À toute à l’heure ! – Darling, my parents are coming by for drinks this evening. Can you please pass by the cheese store? / Of course, sweetie. See you soon!

Je t’aime trop

The first option is to add the adverb trop to je t’aime. While its literal translation is often too much, a better way of looking at it is to think of trop to mean an excessive amount, closer to so much. While je t’aime trop might also lighten the depth of love along the same lines as the expressions we saw in the previous section, it’s still pretty lovey without the risk of your friends rolling their eyes at you two.

• Merci d’avoir emmené assez de fromage pour tout le monde, mon chéri. Je t’aime trop ! – Thanks for bringing enough cheese for everyone, honey. I love you so much!

Je t’adore

Je t’adore is another French phrase that’s perfect for someone you love, translating literally as I adore you. Like in English, where you might use this phrase to avoid using the L-word, je t’adore is a bit lighter among French speakers too. Still, it can also mean that you do, indeed, love each other very deeply.

• Je t’adore ! – I adore you!

In French, adorer is used constantly towards people, places, and things. Think of the famous Dior campaign, J’adore Dior! And if you’d grown up in a Francophone family, you would probably be familiar with a certain song from the 1960s that has transcended time and space, whose pivotal lyric is “je t’adore.” The memorable line was even Mariah Carey’s first musical performance as a child!

Bob Azzam, an Egyptian singer, came out with a classic called Ya Mustafa, with the lyric: “Chérie je t’aime, chérie je t’adore, comme la salsa de pomodor.” Most French people don’t know the name of the song nor the rest of the lyrics, but they’ll spontaneously bust out that particular lyric with the right circumstances. Many have witnessed fathers and grandfathers singing it to their spouses after they’ve messed up, or simply at the end of a delightful meal. If spaghetti pomodoro is being served to Frenchies, that lyric will surface eventually!

T’es trop beau !, T’es trop belle !

If you want to tell someone they’re beautiful, this is the phrase. Contracting tu es to t’es makes it more informal, as does the trop, like we saw above with je t’aime trop. The adjective needs to agree with the gender of the person you’re addressing, so use t’es trop beau to tell a man he’s handsome, and t’est trop belle to tell a woman she’s beautiful.

• Je suis trop content de te voir. T’est trop belle ! – I’m so happy to see you. You’re so beautiful!

Tu me manques trop

Ok, so we’re veering back into the cheesy territory here, but isn’t this a fine line when we’re talking about love? Tu me manques trop translates as I miss you so much, which is obviously suitable over the phone or whenever you see each other again after a long time apart. Your friends will definitely roll their eyes at you if you use this one after your partner gets back from a trip to the kitchen!

• Dépêche-toi, tu me manques trop ! – Hurry up, I miss you so much!

We actually have a whole post on this important expression, covering its grammar and other alternatives for I miss you in French.

Je te kiffe

Kiffer is a slang term for to love in French. Derived from the Arabic word kif, which signifies fun or pleasure, it was originally used in French as a slang term for hashish and weed. Eventually, kiffer became synonymous with aimer. In French, we use the verb kiffer to signify liking something or being into someone or something.

• Je kiffe le foot – I love soccer – I’m into soccer.

• Je te kiffe. – I’m into you. – I have feelings for you. – I have a crush on you.

jtm

We’ll finish up our informal options for I love you in French with this phonetic abbreviation. This one is super low-key, so although it certainly stands for je t’aime, it can also be used among friends who just want to express affection. This shorthand is really just used in quick handwritten notes or as a common text message abbreviation, as an equivalent of I luv u or I love u in French.

• Jtm ❤️xoxo 😘 – I luv u ❤️xoxo 😘

Conclusion: I love you in French

Well that was quite the trip to answer the simple question of what is I love you in French!

The short answer is that we simply say je t’aime, meaning I love you. This phrase will always be enough, and magical on its own. But why stop there when the French language offers so many poetic and whimsical options to share your feelings with the one you fancy?

We went deep to give you a great variety of love words in French, with all their nuances from deep love to lighthearted love to how to say I like you in French.

So whether you’ve already got a French crush, you’re headed to Paris with visions of romance, or you just want to spice up your relationship with some extra expressions of amour, you’re now all set to tell that special someone I love you in French!