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From WWWJDIC:

> 愛 【あい】 (n,n-suf) (See 愛する) love; affection;
>
> 恋 【こい】 (n) love; tender passion;

My understanding on affection, love and tender passion is like the following:

> affection < love < tender passion

If I may line up all three in a spectrum in term of the strength of the
emotion involved, I imagine 愛 covers the lower end of the spectrum while 恋
covers the higher end. The adjectives that are derived from these two nouns
seem to conform to it:

> 愛しい 【いとしい】 (adj-i) lovely; dear; beloved; darling;
>
> 恋しい 【こいしい】 (adj-i) yearned for; longed for; missed;

However, when the two kanji characters are combined with 人 to refer to the
person that is the target of each type of love:

> 愛人 【あいじん】 (n) lover; mistress;
>
> 恋人 【こいびと】 (n) lover; sweetheart;

Apparently the two 'loves' swap places, with my assumption being:

> sweetheart < lover < mistress

What's going on? Am I not getting the nuances for both nouns for 'love' right?

N.B. I don't mind getting philosophical answers here so please go all out if
you must ;)
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question
word-choice nuances
Love in the air: 愛ｘ恋 {あい vs こい}
It is the other way. On the scale, `愛` is stronger than `恋`. Besides that, `愛`
can be used generally, including the kind of love that Christianity talks
about, or the love in between a family. `恋` is only for relations/feelings
toward a person of the targetted sexual orientation.

As for the meaning of `愛人` and `恋人`, you have to be careful. Whereas `恋人`
purely means lover, `愛人` means a lover that is not official, such as one in an
adulterous relationship, or someone for just having sexual relationship. This
is one of the words that need caution when also learning Chinese. In Chinese,
`愛人` means spouse.
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2011-07-27T16:32:30.687
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The difference between 愛 and 恋 is worth diving a bit deeper into. My view is
as follows:

  * 愛: sacrificial, unconditional, love for the other person's sake (often parallels the Greek _[agape](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love)_ , but can extend into _philos_ as sawa mentions)
  * 恋: selfish, conditional, love for one's own sake (often parallels the Greek _eros_ )

While both can be used for romantic love, you cannot simply swap out one for
the other. The contrast between the two shows up clearly in the したい forms of
愛する and 恋をする:

> 愛したい I want to love [someone in a deep, unconditional way]
>
> 恋がしたい I want to [fall in] love [with someone and experience the "high" of
> being in love]

With 愛, the focus is on the other person: you are loving that person for
his/her sake, and even if he/she doesn't return your love, that won't change
your feelings. With 恋, the focus is on you: it's all about experiencing that
feeling of being in love, and it rarely continues if the feeling turns stale
or if the object of your love fails to return your love.

The same difference appears in the ～たい passives:

> ○ 愛されたい I want to be loved [by someone in a deep, unconditional way]
>
> △ 恋をされたい I want someone to fall in love with me

While the first is perfectly OK and common, the second, while not wrong, can
sound strange, as it essentially means you want to be the object of someone's
shallow (compared to 愛) love. Granted, the feeling of knowing that someone
loves you, whether that love is 愛 or 恋, can be pleasant, but when given a
choice, most people would rather be the target of 愛 as opposed to 恋.
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2011-07-27T18:21:47.787
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A nice way to distinguish 愛 and 恋 is to look at the kanjis.

愛は「上」の「心」

恋は「下」の「心」

That should solve many ambiguities.
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