How Do You Say ‘I Love You’ in Russian? Confessing one’s love is always a romantic and emotional experience. So gear up for it with this quick guide on how to say ‘I love you’ in Russian. If you are after minimum effort at memorizing foreign words, just say ‘yellow blue bus’ which roughly sounds like ‘ya lyublyu vas’, the Russian for ‘I love you’. But there is a catch. It is a very formal and polite way to say ‘I love you’ in Russian, when talking to someone you are not very familiar with or close to, for instance, which is hardly possible in the modern world. So, instead, take pains and use ‘ya lyublyu tebya’! If you want to show that your feeling is very intense, there is a way to say I love you in Russian for you, too — ‘ya obozhayu tebya’, which is the Russian for ‘I adore you’. Strangely enough, it can also be said to a close, even a same-sex friend with absolutely no hint of sexual desire, just to say you like someone very much. And finally, if you cannot live if living is without someone, say ‘ya ne mogu zhit bez tebya’. It means ‘I cannot live without you’ and is a very emotional and perhaps the most sincere and deeply felt way to say ‘I love you’ in Russian.