[dkulchenko]

Russian is the same way.

You can translate "I love you" linguistically, but it doesn't really make sense to say - people express it through actions rather than words. It's definitely an interesting (and rather significant) difference in Western culture that grants the 3 words such importance.

[coffeemug]

What do you mean? It absolutely makes sense to say (я тебя люблю). People tend to say it less frequently because the communists attempted to eradicate display of superfluous emotions by pretending they don't exist, but if you go back to the classics the characters talk about love all the time.

[dkulchenko]

I didn't mean it didn't make sense grammatically, just that it's not really something people use in the way they do here in the U.S.

Anecdotal, but growing up surrounded by Russians and consuming Russian media daily, "я тебя люблю" as a phrase is something I've heard uttered by others maybe a dozen times, ever, compared to American culture where it's omnipresent and not uncommon to use many times a day.

Movies and books do talk about love, of course, Russian poetry especially expresses love in a truly amazing way. But the article is referring to the frequent conversational use and Western importance of "I love you", and in that sense, there's a major cultural difference. Didn't know about the historical context behind it - that's an interesting point.