Love Language Test: The Key to Relationship Bliss

The love language test, also known as the love style test, is an effective tool that helps you identify how you prefer to express and receive love. Moreover, it helps you understand what your partner needs to do to make you feel loved, as well as how you need to behave for your partner to feel loved.

Being aware of your love language type and understanding the concept of love language in general can help you improve all relationships in your life, not just romantic ones.

Let’s begin.

The love language test and theory propose that there are five ways in which we express and receive love.
The love languages list includes physical touch, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, and receiving gifts.
Love language theory is aligned with attachment theory, emotional IQ concept, and behavioral psychology.
Knowing your and your partner’s love language leads to greater intimacy, enhanced communication, and potential conflicts.

The love language test works on the presumption that people have different emotional preferences when it comes to giving and receiving affection and love. It consists of questions that target certain thought and behavior patterns and indicate the type of emotional expression that we read as love or a lack of love thereof.

The love language theory originated from the work of Dr. Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor and author who developed it based on his extensive counseling experience with couples.

Throughout his many years of counseling sessions, Dr. Gary Chapman noticed that even partners who love each other deeply often experience conflicts and misunderstandings. He mapped typical patterns of communication that indicated the ways in which individuals showed and expressed love, categorizing them into five distinct love languages.

The science behind the love language test and theory has been widely accepted and used in psychotherapy. Though primarily based on anecdotal evidence and Dr. Chapman’s clinical insights, the love language theory perfectly aligns with several widely recognized psychological concepts and research findings.

Moreover, his theory could actually be viewed as a unique, practical synthesis of:

John Bowlby’s and Mary Ainsworth’s attachment theory
Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence concept
Behavioral psychology

Additionally, the love language test and theory extend the attachment theory, translating the attachment types into behavioral patterns. Plus, it highlights the need for mutual attunement between partners, which correlates with insights from the emotional intelligence concept.

Now, let’s explore the five love languages in more detail!

The five love languages explained will help you better understand your and your partner’s emotional needs. From the giver to the receiver, each of these has its own distinct characteristics and manifestations.

Individuals whose love language is physical touch express love through physical contact. From holding hands to making love, they communicate their emotions by physically engaging in a relationship. Some of the love language examples of this group also include hugs, kisses on the cheek, or taps on the shoulder.

To them, physical proximity to their partner is essential for the stability of the relationship. In a long-distance relationship, they are likely to suffer more or feel more insecure than those whose love language isn’t physical touch.

Moreover, people whose primary love language is physical touch are at ease showing physical affection in public and private settings. However, they might not say ‘I love you’ often, as they feel they said it all with a kiss or a hug, and for them, love is predominantly a physical experience.

For this reason, if their partner isn’t particularly physically affectionate, they may not feel loved or may feel insecure in a relationship, regardless of how committed the partner is.

People whose love language is based on words of affirmation express and receive love through verbal communication. This means they show love through compliments, words of appreciation, verbal affirmation, and expressions of affection and encouragement.

Moreover, they may write love notes, send text messages, and talk about how they feel frequently. In return, they also feel loved when they hear kind, positive words; they need acknowledgment of their efforts and verbal encouragement to feel connected to their partner.

Furthermore, these individuals may often compliment their partner’s achievements or appearance, give speeches dedicated to them at public events, or do other similar acts. So, naturally, they may feel insecure around silent partners who show love in different ways.

For individuals whose love language is quality time, love means spending time together in meaningful activities, giving each other undivided attention, and enjoying each other’s company. These people feel loved when their partner prioritizes spending time together and enjoys planning shared activities.

Conversely, they also feel most loved when their partner dedicates their time solely to them. It’s not about what they do together; it's about devotion. They might enjoy long conversations or outdoor activities; the key is that they feel most connected with their partner when they spend quality time together.

Moreover, they value presence and attention. Consequently, these people might feel neglected by partners with very busy schedules or whose work takes a lot of their energy and focus.

Individuals whose love language is acts of service show their love through their actions. This means they will do their best to help and support their partner in a practical manner, aiming to make their life easier.

These people may express love by taking on chores for their partners, running errands, doing the dishes, or cooking a meal. They take on everyday responsibilities to show they care for and value the other person.

When it comes to receiving love, these individuals feel most loved when their partner helps them with everyday practical tasks or provides support in some other matter important to them. This means they will interpret their partner’s willingness to clean the house or drive them somewhere as an expression or proof of love.

So, if their partner doesn’t offer help or show a willingness to participate in their chores, these people may feel left alone and neglected.

People whose love language is based on receiving gifts see gifts as symbols and proof that they are loved. For them, communicating love is about giving and receiving tangible items as symbolic gestures of affection.

They express love by giving thoughtful presents to their partners and consider gifts a way to show their partners that they see and hear them and that they care. Moreover, they enjoy making their partner feel special by giving them unique gifts that don’t have to be expensive; they just need to show that there’s some effort behind them.

Conversely, these people also feel most loved when they receive gifts. They might not pay much attention to their partner’s words, but if they receive a surprise bouquet of their favorite flowers, they will seek no other proof of love. So, logically, they may doubt the relationship if their partner doesn’t care for such gestures.

Apart from taking a love language test, the best way to know your love language is to reflect and observe when you feel most loved and when you feel most at ease expressing love.

Here are a few practical tips for identifying it:

Reflect on the impact of your past relationships. Try to identify what kind of behavior made you feel the safest and most loved and cared for in a past relationship. In which relationship did you feel at your best, and why do you think that was so?
Reflect on your emotional expression. Think of the people you love the most and analyze how you show love to them. Do you simply tell them you love them, or do you prefer to give them a big hug, spend time together, or surprise them with a gift?
Analyze your major concerns in past relationships. Try to identify what you felt you lacked the most in certain relationships. What made you feel neglected, underappreciated, unseen, or misunderstood? The answer to this question may help you determine your love language more easily.

Your love language is usually the opposite of your toxic trait in the sense that your most dysfunctional patterns reflect your emotional needs. They can also reveal what you lacked the most while growing up.

So, if your love language is acts of service, you might have been pushed to grow up too soon and deal with a lot of responsibilities by yourself. For this reason, you are used to not asking for help from anyone. As a result, when someone helps you without you asking for it, you read it as love.

If your love language is quality time, you’ve probably often felt alone as a child. Your caregivers might not have spent a lot of time with you and, in most cases, left you to deal with your feelings on your own. As a result, you tend to isolate yourself when you feel vulnerable. Therefore, when someone puts spending time with you as their priority, you feel loved.

People who grew up in families where emotions weren’t communicated with words, but there was love and affection often avoid talking about their feelings. However, they feel at ease expressing love through physical touch.

If you were deprived of attention from your caregivers in childhood, you might appreciate gifts as expressions of love. Moreover, your toxic trait may be impulsive shopping and overspending.

Finally, if you punish other people by giving them the silent treatment or sarcasm, you probably grew up feeling the same from your caregivers. And as a result, you read compliments and praise as proof of love.

Receiving and giving love language are, in most cases, the same. However, the love language test and theory teach us that, at times, the way we express love isn’t the same as the way we receive it.

For example, you might find it easy to express love through physical affection, yet you feel most loved when someone praises you and offers verbal acknowledgment and encouragement. This would mean that your giving love language is physical touch, and your receiving love language is words of affirmation.

Moreover, many people have one dominant and one subdominant love language, meaning they communicate through more than one channel with their partner.

However, just like in real life, the more languages you speak and understand, the more easily you communicate, and that applies to love languages, too. This may make communication more complex and challenging, but it may also make the relationship more interesting and dynamic.

How to Know Your Partner’s Love Language

The best way to know your partner’s love language is to observe what kind of behavior from your side triggers the most positive reaction on their side. So, regardless of whether your partner took the love language test or not, simply by observing their reactions, you can get a solid insight into their emotional needs.

Is your partner brimming with joy when you spend time together doing shared activities? Their love language is probably quality time.

Or, maybe you notice your partner’s deep satisfaction and contentment when you cuddle, hug, or walk together holding hands. This means their love language is physical touch. And if you find that your partner feels deeply touched by your kind gestures and small gifts, this would indicate that their preferred love language is receiving gifts.

Or maybe nothing of the above makes your partner particularly happy, but you notice they enjoy it when you compliment them, praise them, and express love through words. They feel most loved when you express your love for them verbally, so their love language is words of affirmation.

Finally, if your partner is filled with gratitude and love when you help them with the dishes or some other tasks they are not fond of, that’s a solid clue that their love language is acts of service.

It is important to know your love language—as well as your partner’s—to avoid misunderstandings and potential conflicts. When you understand how to make your partner feel safe, seen, and heard or how to ask what you need from them, everything becomes easier.

This mutual understanding will not only save you from unnecessary arguments, but it can also lead to deeper intimacy, better personal development, and more profound relationship satisfaction.

Furthermore, when you know how to support each other, you’ll be better prepared to face life challenges and crises together. So, taking the love language test and learning about love languages in general can help you improve your connections on many levels.

There’s no doubt that the love language test is a powerful tool for improving communication in every relationship. Therefore, the better you understand what other people who matter to you read as love and what you need to feel loved, the more fulfillment you’ll enjoy in your relationships.

Moreover, it is also important to note that we can all learn to speak and understand all five love language meanings. There’s no limit to how many we can use! The bottom line is that you can use the concept of the five love languages to enhance your relationship and explore your connection with a loved one in the long run!