I imagine a phonic conspiracy between the world’s languages. They make a conference decision that the phrase must always sound like something to be earned, to be striven for, to be worthy of. Ich liebe dich: a late-night, cigarette-voiced whisper, with that happy rhyme of subject and object. Je t’aime: a different procedure, with the subject and object being got out of the way first, so that the long vowel of adoration can be savoured to the full. (The grammar is also one of reassurance: with the object positioned second, the beloved isn’t suddenly going to turn out to be someone different.) Ya tebya lyublyu: the object once more in consoling second position, but this time — despite the hinting rhyme of subject and object — an implication of difficulty, obstacles to be overcome. Ti amo: it sounds perhaps a bit too much like an aperitif, but is full of structural conviction with subject and verb, the doer and the deed, enclosed in the same word.