The thing with the 3. in both Spanish and Japanese is that they are unambiguously for romantic relationships*, if you wanted to say "I like/love pancakes" you'd

The thing with the 3. in both Spanish and Japanese is that they are unambiguously for romantic relationships*, if you wanted to say "I like/love pancakes" you'd say "me gustan/encantan las tortitas", with "encantan" being the superlative of like, you wouldn't use love*. There is no 2.5 in Spanish/Japanese AFAIK? Like the 2 can be extended to include 2.5. I wanted to point that out, that IMHO in English "I love you" as a romantic phrase in a couple feels to be in a bit of an awkward position between 2 and 3; when you are starting/just a couple it's too early to say it, when you have found your soulmate and are totally in love it's not strong enough of a feeling. * weeell, technically, "amo/amar" can be used as a figure of speech in some situations where it's not purely romantic; but it's kind of uncommon and a wordplay, like trying to describe that you are in love with pancakes everyone would understand it's not "real love", you just want to express how much you like them.