For example, even though there are many types of love (friendship, romantic, etc.) and various degrees of it (you love some people more intensely than others), there’s really only one way to express it in English — “I love you”.

In Spanish, however, there are a whole bunch of ways to express the degree of love for someone — “Te amo” being the strongest (the romantic equivalent to “I love you” — but even stronger. You should really wait to say this); “Te quiero” being a more subdued and less-threatening, “informal” way to express affection (close friends, new relationships); “Te aprecio”, which is more like caring, etc.

As for “reading a dead book”, here in Puerto Rico we have a phrase which means the same thing: “leer como el papagayo”. It’s basically a word recital or reading without absorbing anything.

I have to admit that the language IS fascinating. It’s complicated, but there are wonderful things about it.

My favorite phrase in Chinese is probably 危機 (no guarantees that I typed the right characters) because it’s like crisis = danger + opportunity.

There are so much you could say about the Chinese language, from the phrases you mentioned to even the shaping of the characters. I really like the catchy idioms that are filled to brim with cultural implications and folklore.

青出于蓝胜于蓝.
不入虎穴，不得虎子

I’m stopping before I embarrass myself with my third grade Beijing education haha.

I would love to learn Chinese as well as Japanese, but it’s not a language that is offered where I live. I can take French, German, Italian, and Spanish down here, but the Asian languages are not offered. It’s frustrating, really. It’s hard teaching yourself!