What is a Love Language?
The love language is what we associate with being loved or giving love. It’s what we most desire to feel like someone loves us. Verbal language is only one of many forms of communication that we use. Other forms may include written, visual, and body language. Love languages are meant to make us feel love or help express our
love more profoundly rather than simply saying, “I love you . ”There are five different love languages. We learn about these love languages through the words of Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Paul White in their book titled “The 5 Love Languages”.
What Are the 5 Love Languages?
1. “Physical Touch. Person-to-person contact”. This can include hugging, holding hands,
massages, or any other form of physical contact.
2. “Words of Affirmation. Using words to communicate a positive message to another
person”. This includes praises, compliments, and encouragement. Whether it’s
one-on-one, in public, or through a text message, it will also have an
impact.
3. “Tangible Gifts. Giving physical items”. Giving presents, food, or even time.
4. “Quality Time-Giving the person your focused attention.” Having conversations, sharing
personal experiences, or doing something together like working on a
project.
5. “Acts of Service- Providing assistance: “how can I help?” Ask if they need help or do
nice things for them without asking. Helping to do things their way and do it
with good intent, not just because you have to. (Gary Chapman, 2010).
What is My Love Language?
There are many quizzes that you can take online that can guide you toward understanding what your love language is. For most people, it’s quite easy to know when someone does something for you, and you feel loved or cared about. Most of the time, we tend to show our love language to others, even though we may not share the same language. We develop our primary love language throughout our lives through our parents and family. Later on, we will develop our secondary love language and so on. “Each member of a partnership initially learned the language of his or her parents and siblings, which became one’s native tongue. Later, one may acquire additional languages, which become secondary languages” (Eckstein & Morrison, 1999, p. 75-76).
We may develop our love language depending on our situation and personality. For example, some of us might receive a lot of quality time with our family while growing up and develop that specific love language as we grow older. However, the opposite may happen too. Growing up, we might receive gifts all the time and later develop a “dislike” for receiving or giving gifts. That particular love language may become our least favorite or the one we feel most dull towards. Whatever, the case, we all have a different love language that we associate with most.
Why is it Important to Know These Languages?
As previously mentioned, we develop our languages through our immediate family. For the most part, our love language will affect our future partner/spouse and vice versa. However, because everyone has a love language, we can all affect those around us by knowing their love language. You can learn the love language of your
parents, siblings, spouse/partner, friends, and even co-workers. Once you are able to see how someone can feel loved, you can better offer love to them in the best way possible for them. We all have a “love meter” that can be filled through our language. We feel the most disconnected from someone when that meter is running low. We have different love meters towards different people, meaning our love meter can be low towards someone but full with someone else simultaneously. When it comes to couples, talking about love languages is essential as well. Go out of your way to make your partner feel loved. Find out what their love language is and do things for them. Love is strongest when both parties understand one another’s love language.
Reference
Eckstein, D., & Morrison, J. (1999). Exploring different expressions
of Love. The Family Journal, 7(1), 75–76.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1066480799071014
Gary Chapman. 2010. The five love
languages. Walker Large Print.
Photo by Işıl Agc
Photo by Ron Lach