Valentine’s Day in the Original Language: Why “Ti amo” Feels Different from “I Love You”

Not All Words Are the Same for the Brain. Especially when they speak about love.

In the age of on-demand streaming, where we can choose whether to watch a film dubbed or in its original language, an intriguing question emerges for neuroscience: does the language in which we hear a story change the way we experience it emotionally? And why does a declaration of love in our native language seem to activate something deeper than the same words spoken in a foreign language?

The Foreign Language Effect: When Emotions “Cool Down”

Imagine this scene: you are watching a romantic comedy. In the Italian dubbed version, you laugh out loud at the jokes and feel moved when the protagonists confess their love. But when you watch the very same scene in English, something changes. The jokes seem less funny, the love declarations less touching. This is not a matter of linguistic comprehension—you understand perfectly what the actors are saying—yet the emotional impact is different.

Welcome to the world of the foreign language effect, a fascinating neurocognitive phenomenon showing that our emotions quite literally “speak” different languages.

Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed what happens in our brain when we process emotional content in our native language (L1) compared to a foreign language (L2). When we watch romantic, funny, or sad scenes in our mother tongue, the brain shows stronger activation of the amygdala—the brain’s emotional hub—and of the anterior temporal areas, regions that are crucial for assigning emotional meaning to words.

An experiment conducted at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe Italian–English bilinguals while they watched emotionally charged movie clips, either dubbed in Italian or in the original English version. The results were unequivocal: humorous scenes in Italian elicited a significantly stronger response in the right amygdala than the same scenes in English. In other words, the very same jokes make us laugh more in our native language because our brain “feels” the emotion more deeply.

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Why “Ti amo” Sounds Different from “I love you”

The reason for this difference lies in how the brain constructs emotions. Emotional words in our native language are deeply intertwined with our personal history: ti amo resonates with memories of the first time we heard it, with childhood emotions, with thousands of situations in which those words accompanied meaningful moments. When we hear I love you in a film, our brain tends to process it in a more cognitive, less visceral way.

Psychophysiological measurements confirm this effect. When bilingual individuals listen to romantic sentences in L2, they show lower skin conductance (an index of emotional arousal), less pupil dilation, and even a smaller increase in heart rate compared to the same sentences in L1. It is as if the body recognizes that something is “different”—less authentic—in the way emotions are processed in a foreign language.

This phenomenon also has surprising implications for decision-making. Studies have shown that when bilinguals face moral dilemmas in L2—such as deciding whether to sacrifice one person to save five—they tend to make more utilitarian decisions and are less influenced by emotions. The foreign language creates an emotional distance that reduces activation in the brain’s limbic areas, allowing for cooler, more rational reasoning.

The Romantic Paradox of Bilingualism

This brings us to an interesting Valentine’s Day paradox: how do multilingual couples experience their emotions? Does an Italian–English bilingual who declares love in English feel it less intensely?

Not necessarily. Research shows that linguistic proficiency makes a difference: the more fluent a person is in a foreign language, the more the amygdala responds to emotional stimuli in that language. Highly proficient bilinguals can therefore approach a nearly native emotional experience even in L2. In other words, if you have lived abroad for a long time, had relationships in that language, cried and laughed in that language, words of love in L2 will gradually acquire the same emotional resonance as those in L1.

Some multilingual couples even report using different languages strategically to modulate emotional intensity: discussing delicate issues in L2 can reduce emotional charge and facilitate more rational communication, while romantic declarations remain reserved for the “language of the heart.”

The Emotional and Cognitive Benefits of the Original Language

Returning to our streaming habits, watching content in the original language does not only improve language skills—it also enriches our multilingual emotional life.

In Italy, we are accustomed to watching foreign films that are perfectly dubbed. In other countries, the situation is different: English-language films are usually not dubbed (and, at most, subtitled). Take Albania as an example: it is well known that many Albanians who immigrated to Italy have a good command of Italian despite having received no formal instruction, thanks to passive exposure during childhood to Italian television broadcasts received across the Adriatic Sea.

In children, the brain is still highly plastic and open to acquiring the correct phonology of a foreign language. But even in adults, watching films in the original language helps to:

• Become familiar with cultural nuances of emotion: every culture has its own way of joking, flirting, and expressing affection—subtleties that are often lost in translation
• Build stronger emotional connections with L2: repeated exposure to emotional expressions in natural contexts strengthens associations between foreign words and affective states
• Train the bilingual brain: managing multiple languages enhances executive functions and contributes to the “cognitive reserve” that protects against cognitive aging.

A Tip for Valentine’s Day (and Beyond)

Why do some people prefer watching films in the original language while others do not? Several factors play a role: the desire to improve English proficiency, curiosity about cultural expressions, but also the fear of not fully understanding or of “losing” the emotional impact of the film.

We now know that this last concern is partly justified: at first, films in a foreign language do indeed move us less. But there is good news. The more we watch original-language content, the more our brain builds emotional bridges with that language—until I love you can make our heart beat just as fast as ti amo.

So, my advice for this Valentine’s Day? If you want to watch a romantic movie with your partner, you might choose the dubbed version to experience emotions at their peak. But if you want to invest in your personal (and cerebral) growth, choose the original language. It is never too late for our brain to adapt and learn to feel in more than one language.

Because, in a globalized world, having a multilingual heart may be the most precious gift we can give ourselves.

This article revisits and updates content previously addressed in an earlier publication, reworked in light of new data and the current context.