I enjoyed A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, for its engaging exploration of differences of culture, philosophy and thought through Z, a young Chinese girl, come to England for an education, and her romantic entanglement with an older English man. The book is written as Z speaks, beginning with the basic and broken language of a beginner, evolving as she adjusts to her new life and eventually becoming almost as fluent as a native speaker. Throughout there are interesting and amusing situations arising from the difficulties of translation, not only because meanings don't easily align, but also because the ways of thinking underpinning the languages have some important differences.
