How to say i miss you in japanese

We’ve all felt that longing to see someone whom we care deeply about. Maybe it’s a family member, perhaps a significant other, or a long time friend. Perhaps you want to tell them how you feel? What is “I miss you” in Japanese?

Well as it turns out, there’s not an exact Japanese equivalent to this phrase.

But there are a couple of ways to express the same basic emotion of wanting to see someone again.

I’m going to go over the two most common ways now and then provide you with some other ways that are possible to use, but I personally don’t see them that often.

I Miss You In Japanese

The first way that you can say that you miss someone is to rephrase is slightly and instead say that you want to see them.

When you think about it, that’s kind of what the English phrase means. That you desire to spend time together with them because you haven’t been able to for a while.

Here’s the Japanese phrase now:

• 会いたい！
• aitai!
• I miss you!
• I want to see you!

This comes from the word 会う (au) which means “to meet” someone, but when its changed into the tai-form like in the above example, it means “want to meet” or as we would say in English “want to see you” and then spend time together.

If you’re talking to that special person you like, then this is the phrase to use.

I’ve also seen this phrase used in a slightly different format before. It was when a girl reunited with her old friend in a manga and she ran over to them while yelling:

• ずっと会いたかった！
• zutto aitakatta!
• I’ve missed you so much!
• I’ve wanted to see you for so long!

This is basically the same thing, but the emphasis is stronger than the first phrase since it emphasizes the past and an emotion that has been held for an extended duration.

Another Way To Say It

The other common way to say that you miss someone in Japanese is to flip things around and instead of talking about a forward-looking emotion (i.e. wanting to see them) you talk about a backward looking feeling.

In this case, it centers around the word 寂しい (sabishii) which means “lonely.”

A lot of times Japanese people will use this word as a way of saying that they are lonely because they aren’t with the other person.

Again, this is very similar to the English phrase “I miss you” because you usually feel some sadness and lonely feelings when you can’t spend time with the one you care about.

Perhaps a longer phrase that utilized this new word can help illustrate it further.

• 君がいなくてとても寂しい。
• kimi ga inakute totemo sabishii.
• I miss you very much.
• You’re not here, and I feel very lonely.

[hinative.com]

Another common reading of the word for lonely is さみしい (samishii). This is nearly identical to the version we’ve been using so far, but instead of a び (bi) we use a み (mi) in its place.

There is also an alternative kanji for this word, but I almost never see it used. It is 淋しい and means the same thing, so just keep that in mind in case you encounter it.

Alright, let’s go onto the next part.

An English-y Way To Say It

If you try to find the phrase “I miss you” in an online Japanese dictionary like Jisho, then you might be presented with it spelled entirely in katakana.

If so, it will be アイ・ミス・ユー (ai misu yuu) which is literally just the English phrase transferred directly into the Japanese language.

What the heck, man!?

Now, I’ve never personally seen this one used so I’m not sure how common it is. Perhaps it’s just used in English class, or as the title to some sort of artistic work like an album or a book.

I’m not sure, but if any of you have every seen it used, please let me know in the comments section below.

I am genuinely curious.

A New Word For Me Too

That last word that I wanted to share with you is one that I am just learning how to use myself as well.

The word itself is 恋しい (koishii) which is an i-adjective which means “yearned for; longed for; missed.”

Honestly, I can’t for the life of me remember ever running into it while reading or listening to Japanese, so I had to do some research on it to see what I could find.

When looking at Japanese websites that teach people English, they used it in the following example:

• 孤独だよ。君のことが恋しいよ！
• kodoku da yo. kimi no koto ga koishii yo!
• I’m lonely. I miss you!

[career-picks.com]

OK, so we can get an idea of how to use it from this phrase. When you’re talking to someone you can use their name or a pronoun plus のこと (nokoto) in combination with 恋しい to say that you miss them and everything about them.

Another way that I like to learn about new words it to see what their Japanese definitions are, since they tend to paint a much more complete picture than the Japanese to English dictionaries do.

If we hop on over to goo and type it in, we get the following definition for 恋しい:

• 離れている人や場所、また事物などに強く心を引かれるさま。

A rough English translation of this would be something along the lines of:

• The state of being strongly attracted by people, places, or things that one is separated from.

This is in line with what we’ve gone over so far, but I think that one of the interesting parts is the emphasis on the “being separate” part of it.

Because of that, I think the English words “longing” and “yearning” are more apt than “miss” when it comes to understanding it.

Now I Want To Hear From You

That’s all for today’s lesson on letting people know that you miss them in Japanese.

Hopefully you’ve found the information both useful and easy to understand.

If you’ve got any questions on anything that I went over, let me know by leaving it down below.

Thanks!

Today we are going to talk about how to say “I miss you” in Japanese. This a term that is not often used casually as it is in the west. Let’s take a look at all the different ways of saying it!

恋しい

恋こいしい is the most common term to appear when looking up how to say “I miss you” but is only used when referring to missing a place, food or thing but not people. Here are some examples of how the term could be used;

• 日本にほんが恋こいしい。 = I miss Japan.
• すしが恋こいしい。 = I miss sushi.
• 日本にほんのラーメンが恋こいしい。 = I miss Japanese ramen.
• 日本にほんのゲームセンターが恋こいしい。 = I miss Japanese arcades.

会いたい

会あいたい is a term that literally “means I want to meet”. 会あい is from the ます form of the verb 会あう (to meet) while the たい replaces the ます to represent “I want to”. Again, this is not said casually and is something that would be used with people close to you but not your family. If talking to your parents then you could say;

Be careful when using this phrase with your close friends though as it could give off the wrong signal if they fancy you, even if you are being platonic.

Here are some examples of how the phrase can be used;

• みさに会あいたい。 = I miss Misa. (lit. I want to meet Misa.)
• 今いますぐ会あいたい。 = I want to meet you right now.
• 会あいたくなっちゃった。 = Missing you. (lit. I became wanting to see you. I should be more patient…)

Another way of using the 会う verb to express missing someone is by saying;

• 次つぎ会あえるの（が）楽たのしみ。 = I’m looking forward to (lit. getting to) seeing you next time.

This is a less direct phrase and can show that you like someone but you know you aren’t at the stage of saying “I miss you” yet while still being friendly and sweet. There are many grammatical phrases within this phrase so let’s briefly take a look at them;

• 会あう becomes it’s “potential form” of 会あえる
• The の particle is used to nominalise the verb. This is because when verbs are placed in front of particles they need to be nominalised. You can take a look at this deeper in my other lesson XXXXX.

This phrase can also be used when finally meeting the person you missed by saying;

• 会あいたかったよ。 = I missed you! (lit. I wanted to meet you.)

さびしい

This phrase is another way of saying I miss you but literally translates to “I feel lonely”. A good example of using this would be;

• NAMEに会あえなくて、さびしい。 = I miss you. (lit. I’m lonely because I can’t see you.)

Sometimes you will hear people pronounce this as “さみしい” which is grammatically incorrect but they do it anyway. Don’t be surprised if you hear this!

Just like 会あいたい, this phrase can be used to express how much you missed someone once you see them again by saying;

• さびしかった。 = I missed you! (lit. I was lonely.)

Whereas if you were going to say goodbye;

• さびしくなるね。 = I’m going to miss you. (lit. I will be lonely.)

And there you have it, ways of saying “I miss you” in Japanese!

Thank you so much for reading this article and supporting me. Come back soon!

さびしくなるね :'(