Love "scale"
It seems to me that in English the "love scale" is different from the one in Spanish. I mean, people say "I love cheese burgers", "I love your new car", "I hate waiting in line", using "love/hate", in a way that it's not done in Spanish with "amar/odiar". In Spanish we say "me gusta/encanta", "me molesta" instead.
Is this because people are exagerated, or the concept "to love"is wider than "amar"?
4 Answers
Good question. (I will answer as a person from England as I don't know much about other English speaking countries.)
In my opinion, you are right to think it is slightly exaggerated the way we use "love" and "hate" in English, but sometimes I think it is justified because of the intense emotions that come about when experiencing something or a situation. Someone that really enjoys cheeseburgers, and I mean really enjoys them, would never say that they simply like them a lot. I suppose it's just not enough. And I can especially empathize with the hatred of waiting in line - it's not enough to say that you dislike it if you wish you never had to do it. (And we English are quite impatient people, so it can anger us a little at times...)
However, definitely with people, "love" is not used so flippantly face to face. You see it a lot online, on Facebook, through texts etc, but we hardly say I love you to people unless we genuinely do, like to a family member or a partner/spouse etc. Hate...? I certainly agree that this word is used too much and certainly quite a lot of the time inappropriately when referring to an emotion towards people. I hear things like "I hate Katy Perry" and I think.. really? What has she done to you?
I really like the way there is that distinction between "like", "love", "dislike"/"annoyance" and "hatred" in Spanish. It's way more colourful from my perspective as an English person who most often only hears "love" and "hate" jaja 
I would agree that "amar" is a much narrower concept than the English "love". No one would say "yo amo tus zapatos nuevos", but in English you could say "I love your new shoes". Perhaps we have diluted the word to the point that it really has no real meaning in itself. You really must look to context to see if we are talking about "really like" or the deeper concept of "love".
People speaking English tend to way overuse love/hate. We use it like gusta/molestar. Correct usage of the two verbs asks that we use like/dislike.
Es más bien que love tiene un significado más amplio en inglés que amar en español, pero si no has notado, ultimamente en la redes sociales es cada vez más y más común ver gente diciendo "amé tal cosa" o "amé tal otra" y quienes les responden " yo tmb lo amé", dándole el mismo sentido a nuestro verbo amar que el inglés to love, lo cual es un verdadero fastidio, al menos para los que nos gusta hablar español cuando hablamos español, y que percibo como un ataque constante contra el idioma que hablo; lo más preocupante es que no es de parte de mexicanos o boricuas que viven en EEUU sino de gente que vive en un país hispanoparlante y no hablan bien español ni inglés, es un adefesio inefable.
