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Note: Please no spoilers beyond the start of the 6th novel.

At the very end of the 5th Spice and Wolf novel, Lawrence says "I like you".

Love is never once used by Lawrence toward Holo so far in the story. I even ran the search function to check the PDF, I'm certain.

Yet, in the next book, at the very start, on the same day that the previous novel left off, Holo teases Lawrence about saying "I love you".

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The best I can tell, the author meant to write "love" in the previous novel, or else my PDF copy is simply wrong.

What's the explanation behind this?

I'm afraid to do a Google search on the topic since I'm only starting the 6th novel and searching "love" in regards to a romance that I'm 6 of 17 books through is just begging to run into all sorts of spoilers.

nhahtdh
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J.Todd
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  • actually Japanese Light Novels are perfectly on-topic here so the disclaimer isn't entirely needed – Memor-X Feb 18 '18 at 01:15
  • @Memor-X thanks! That's good news, I wasn't expecting the question to find an answer on the other site. For anyone who takes issue with this being [cross-posted](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/5753/at-the-start-of-6th-spice-and-wolf-light-novel-whats-up-with-the-discrepancy-b) onto literature.se, I'd assume leave it posted there since someone was kind enough to make a Spice and Wolf tag there on my behalf, but if it becomes and issue, I'll close that one and keep this one open. – J.Todd Feb 18 '18 at 01:18
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    `or else my PDF copy is simply wrong`. Do you have the Yen On (Yen Press) translations or are we talking about a fan translated version? – Dimitri mx Feb 18 '18 at 14:27
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    @Dimitrimx The first edition of volume 5 dated December 2011 has the same wording. I'm not sure if there has been a new revision or not. – nhahtdh Feb 18 '18 at 15:52

1 Answers1

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Apparently, the same word 好き is used in both instances in Japanese version of the light novel.

Quoting the same lines from Page 345 of Spice and Wolf 5 (emphasis mine):

それでも、ロレンスはホロを抱きしめて、そして。
「俺は、お前が好きなんだ」
それから、右頬に軽く口づけをした。

Quoting the same line from Page 29 of Spice and Wolf 6 (emphasis mine):

「わっちゃあ嬉しかった。そう。ぬしがわっちを好きじゃと言ってくれて。じゃからー」

Regardless of whether "like" or "love" is the correct translation, the same word should have been used in both places, since Holo was simply quoting Lawrence's confession to her the night before.

nhahtdh
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