Meaning of 憧れる: admiring vs wishing to be like someone I'm finding several instances of translate as "I wish I were like"; for example, in the first episode of a character says to the main character , which is translated as "I wish I were like you". On Jisho, is given as "to long for; to yearn after; to admire; to be attracted by", while on Weblio as "", which seems to me close enough to Jisho's definition. While I get why admiring and/or longing for someone could mean whishing to be (like) them, that's not a given, someone could admire a person without wishing to be like them, and in that episode while "I wish I were like you" it's not out of place, neither is "I really admire you"; so I was wondering: is "I wish to be like" a normal meaning/implication of , or is it more neutral, a sentiment of admiration without necessarily the wish to be like the object of admiration, and that implication is read by the translator in the situation?

X sometimes implies "to wish to be like", depending on contexts. I think the particular case is within the spectrum of its meaning, so it is not particularly a translation matter.

At the bottom, X means "the subject thinks X is ideal". Whether or not the subject wants to be/have X depends on context.

For example assume is a beautiful girl. If the speaker is a girl, would usually means "I wish I could be like "; if the subject is a boy, it usually means "I long for ". Both shares the basic " is an ideal woman".

Also, it could be the case that the speaker does not long for X thinking it is ideal. Continuing the above, a boy could say "" just meaning "I admire ", that is, without any implication that he loves her.

* * *

Another example pair.

* I long for living in Europe
* I think living in Europe would be nice, but being in Japan is easier.