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What if you are in an exotic land and the only thing keeping you away from finding true love, is language? Here's a cut-and-keep guide that lets you say, I Love You, like a pro in 36 languages.
Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar were on the right track when they crooned, "Gujarati maan bole tane prem karun chhoon...".
Yet one wonders about the success rate of the, "Hum tum pey itna dying, jitna sea mein pani lying..." line that follows.
That's the thing with love though. You tend to either get tongue-tied or carried away. They say it's excruciating to tell someone you love them, and not to hear it said back.
In Russian
Tennis star Anna Kournikova to singer Enrique Iglesias
Likely to say: "Ya lyublyu tebya" (pronounced Ya l-you-bl-you tibya)
And they're right, we concede. So, it does take a lot of courage to tell someone how you feel. But isn't it worth it, whatever the response?
As a wise man once wrote: "...and pity us all / Who vainly the dreams of youth recall / For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: "It might have been!" Besides, in case you feel the angrezi phrase has lost its essence, thrown around as casually as it is these days, here are 36 new ways of saying, "I love you".
Here's how to keep it simple, in the language of your choice.
>> British men say, "I love you" quicker than women do: As per the data collected by UK's Stella Magazine and YouGov, in November 2009, men take an average of 7 months to declare they love their partner, while women take longer.
>> Indians are most committed love-makers: According to a 2005 Durex Global sex survey, Indians had the fewest sexual partners with an average of 3 as compared to the global average of 9.
>> The Beatles song Can't Buy Me Love sold 940,225 copies in the US the very day it was released back in 1964. Over 3 million copies were sold by the end of the year. The record remains unchallenged to date.
Speak Up!
In Marathi
Likely to say: "Mi tula prem karto"
In French
"Je vous aime"
Hindi
Main tumse pyaar karta hoon/ karti hoon
Gujarati
Hoon tane prem karu chhoon
Assamese
Moi tomak bhal pau
Kannada
Naa ninna preetisuve
Malayalam
Njyaan ninne' preetikyunnu
Telugu
Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Punjabi
Mai taunu pyar karda
Bengali
Aami tumake bhaalobashi
Konkani
Hanv tukka preeti karta
Nepali
Ma timilai maya garchhu
Sindhi
Maa tokhe pyar kando ahyan/kandi ahyan
Urdu
Mujhe tumse mohabbat hai
Sanskrit
Twayi snihyaami
Manipuri
Aina nangbu nunshi
Oriya
Mu tumaku bhala paye
Tamil
Naan unnai khadalikkeren
Maithili (Bihar)
Hum tohra sa prem kare chhi
Kashmiri
Me chhu tse sity ashq
Bhojpuri
Ham aap say pyar kareni
Listen In
Mandarin (Chinese dialect)
Wo ai ni
(Listen to the sound and imagine it's Hindi, if you will: "voh aayi nahin". Superstitious people may want to steer clear of this one.)
Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)
Mama oyata arderyi
Japanese
Watashi-wa anata-wo ai shite imasu
Burmese
Chit pa de
Swahili (East Africa)
Na ku pen da (followed by the person's name)
Indonesian
Saya cinta padamu
(The Indonesian language takes a strangely relaxed approach to grammar and by merely repeating the word Cinta, pronounced "chinta", twice, you may imply that you have many lovers.)
Yoruba (Nigeria, Africa)
Mo ni ife e
Portuguese
Amo-te
(If you are reading from a travel guide though, be very careful: "Amou" means "loved" past tense; here's a Portuguese word you could use if you confused one for the other: Tchau, meaning "Bye")
Polish
Kocham ciebie (to a man), kocham cie (to a girl); pronounced: koham chiebie and koham chie
Hakka (Chinese dialect)
Ngai on ni (Pronounced: guy on knee; almost prophetic, one might say.)
Thai
Chan rug khun (to a man)/ Phom rug khun (to a girl)
Armenian
Yes kez si'rumem
Hungarian
Szerlekret; pronounced: Sair ret lek
Korean
Dangsinul saranghee yo
Jordanian
Shtitalic el yom
Pashto (Afghanistan)
Za tasara meena kawam
Italian
Ti amo
German
Ich liebe dich
(It's important to note that this phrase can never be used in a casual manner, like its English counterpart. We're also guessing you can goof up that last word, so we'd recommend getting German diction lessons before you attempt this one.)
Lebanese
Behibak (to a man)/Behibek (to a woman)
(This one's simply too close for comfort.) | 
