Five Love Languages and Two Quizzes

I was thinking last night that you can really tell what my primary love languages are from my last post. Quality Time and Acts of Service are definitely at the top of my list, followed closely by Words of Affirmation. That's one reason why all the time, help and support family and friends have given over the past few months is so meaningful to me.

Even though it's been a challenging season of life with young children and prelabor and then a newborn, I feel so very loved and supported. Everyone from my parents, sisters and inlaws to friends and neighbors have given of their time and energy to be with and help us. My "love tank" is pretty full at the moment.

What are your love languages?

The Five Love Languages are from Dr. Gary Chapman's book of that name. You can find a lot of information about love languages (and the book) on Chapman's Five Love Languages website.

The five love languages are, in no particular order:

Quality Time
Acts of Service
Gifts
Physical Touch
Words of Affirmation

Most people enjoy giving and receiving all 5 (I know I do), but one or more will be much more meaningful to them than others.


Knowing someone's love language can help you to communicate love to them in a way that is most meaningful to them. Knowing your own love language can help you understand yourself and your responses better. Learning about the love languages that are "foreign" to you can help you both communicate love better to others, and also recognize when someone may be trying to communicate love to you in a language other than your primary one.

I used to try to communicate love to my husband with gifts, but I quickly found out that gifts have very little comparative meaning to him. His far most important love language is physical touch--the one which just happens to be at the bottom of my own list. Just a hug or a touch on the hand carries so much more meaning for him. So I really have to work at remembering to communicate love to him in that way.

I found two online quizzes about the five love languages, and thought it would be fun to take them both. My scores were slightly different on the two.

This one at greaterquest.com was the simpler of the two, I thought. It gave me the following score:


Score Love Language
8 Words of Affirmation
10 Quality Time
3 Receiving of Gifts
9 Acts of Service
0 Physical Touch


How to interpret your Profile Score:

Your highest score indicates your primary love language. Your second highest score indicates your secondary love language. If two scores are identical, you are bilingual (you have two primary love languages). If the scores of your primary and your secondary language are close (for example, 10 & 9 respectfully), it indicates both are important to you. Whatever a significant other does to express love in either of these languages will get emotional points with you. The highest possible score for any language is 12.

Having a clear picture of your primary & secondary love languages will explain much of your past behavior Think back over the past and ask yourself "What have I most often requested from significant others?" Chances are your answer will lie within the scope of your primary & secondary love languages. You have been requesting that which would meet your deepest need for emotional love.

This one at selectsmart.com has a different format and questions, and came up with slightly different results for me (note: possibly offensive advertisement may be on that website):

Your Results
The list below is modified by your input. Note: The selector author alone determined the questions and scoring of these results.

#1 Acts of Service

#2 Quality Time

#3 Receiving Gifts

#4 Words of Affirmation

#5 Physical Touch

I think the first quiz was more accurate in ranking the order of importance of the languages for me, although I would give both gifts and touch a higher score than the quiz did. I don't think Physical Touch is actually at a 0, but it's definitely the least important of the five languages to me.

I notice, though, that I tend to show love to others slightly differently than I receive it. I think that's part of the reason for the differing results--because the second quiz had a few more questions about what I would do to show love to someone else. Gifts and physical touch rank higher in how I show love than in how I best receive it, I think.

How would you rank the five love languages in importance to you? Is there a difference whether you're showing or receiving love?