Different Types of Love Language

It’s great that you’re interested in understanding the different types of love language. 

Learning The 5 Love Languages is the single-best and single-easiest things you can do in the next few minutes to enhance your relationship forever.

The goal is to explain the 5 different types of love language and share examples to help you give and receive love more effectively.

What Are the Different types of Love Language 

Do you sometimes feel like you and your partner are speaking a completely different language? Like you’re talking to each other but not feeling truly heard or understood?

This is more common than you might think, which is why miscommunication is often listed as one of the top arguments for couples.

Over the years we’ve taken communication courses, read dozens of relationship books, and have even tried relationship and couple’s therapy to learn how to communicate better.

One of the most effective ways we’ve learned to communicate as a couple is also one of the most simple: The 5 Love Languages.

In this article, we’ll spell out exactly what the different types of love languages are, how you and your partner can learn what each other’s are in just a few minutes, and share examples of how to speak them effectively.

What is The 5 Love Languages?

It’s hands-down one of the best books for couples to read together to drastically improve relationship satisfaction.

The 5 Love Languages is a book written by relationship expert and author Dr. Gary Chapman. The book is short and a great read — we recommend it to everyone — although you can learn the premise much faster by reading this article and taking a short and free quiz.

What we like about The 5 Love Languages is that while the author is a pastor, the 5 types of love language book itself is largely non-religious, inclusive, and not corny. An excessive amount of examples and anecdotes are given in the book, so while it gets repetitive, it drives home clearly and succinctly how to utilize the different types of love language in every type of relationship.

This book and the concepts in it are solid gold and we gift the book to all of our friends and family members.

Let’s go in and take a look the types of love language list.

What Are the Different Types of Love Language?

Love isn’t one-size-fits-all, and why would it be? We’re all different.

Dr. Chapman identifies five different types of love language that can be used to show our love for others:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

They all sound great! Why not have all The 5 Love Language categories? Well, you can!

Once you’re familiar with the different types of love languages, it will be easier to recognize what people are showing you and what you can give in return.

While you may want to be shown love in multiple ways, you likely have a preference for some types over the others. That’s what we love about the book and the Love Language test: they’ll help you rank your order. That way, you can share with your partner and family the way that resonates most with you.

For example, here are screenshots of our results from our last quiz:

What’s interesting is that once you know these different types of love language, you begin to see them everywhere. You’ll quickly identify what your boss’s, mom’s, son’s, and friends’ love languages are.

You’ll also probably learn that you like to show your love for others in the same way you want to receive love — which may or may not work with your partner.

We see this all of the time: someone loves to receive words of affirmation so therefore they give words of affirmation. And that might be a mismatch… as you can see from our results!

Let’s explain each of these five different types of love with examples to see what they mean and learn how to use them to better all of our relationships.

Words of Affirmation as a Love Language

Words of affirmation are the love language where you feel loved with words. This is done through praise, compliments, and words of encouragement.

For partners who experience love through words of affirmation, try the below examples:

• Send your partner sporadic texts throughout the day telling them how much you love them
• Hide little love notes around the house for your partner
• Write in a gratitude journal together every night and read what you wrote aloud
• Tell them at every opportunity how much you love them
• Celebrate their accomplishments, big and small
• Compliment them in front of others (and while they’re standing there too!)

Is Words of Affirmation you or your partner’s love language? We hope these examples give you ideas to fill their love tank. If you have an example to share, please do so in the comments!

Quality Time Love Language

If quality time is your love language, it means that spending distraction-free time together makes you feel the most loved. Try this through activities or just by receiving undivided attention when you’re together.

Phone distractions are a big no-no here. Quality time doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re talking non-stop together. It may just be being with and paying attention to your partner without scrolling through Instagram.

A few examples of how to increase your quality time together are below:

• Turn off your phone and the TV whenever your partner is in the room
• Plan nightly walks or a weekly hike together
• Go through our favorite Date Night Questions and Would You Rather Questions for Couples over dinner
• Volunteer together
• Try out each other’s hobbies
• Commit to a month of puzzling together
• Make brewing and enjoying your morning cups of coffee a ritual where you talk about your day’s plans
• Follow a self-guided walking tour of your hometown
• Schedule our free, DIY at-home marriage retreat

One simple and easy way to share quality time is with this fun and memorable movie date night at home.

Receiving Gifts as a Love Language

Receiving gifts is a love language where you feel exceptionally loved and appreciated when given a gift. The gift doesn’t have to be fancy — you never want to stress your wallet — but it can be something small and thoughtful.

Here are some ideas of both big and small gifts that you or your partner may love if receiving gifts is your love language of choice:

• Bring your partner a cup of coffee in bed
• Pick up a scone or muffin at your partner’s favorite bakery whenever you pass by
• Surprise your partner with a hotel booking for a staycation, or plane tickets to somewhere special
• Pick flowers in the garden and put them in a vase on the table
• Text your partner a short poem that you wrote for them
• Sign up for a monthly subscription box (flowers and games always work!)
• Buy a small souvenir for them any time you take a trip — with or without them!

Is your partner, mother, best friend, or coworker always giving you gifts? That’s a sign that their Love Language is “Receiving Gifts.” Fill their love tank with one of the above examples!

Acts of Service Love Language

This one is for me because I’m a strong acts of service lover. When showing your love through acts of service, you essentially want to do helpful things for your partner.

It also helps if your partner knows that you’re doing an act of service specifically because you love them.

For example, after learning that this was my love language, Ryan told me that whenever he makes the bed (which he now does every day) it is because he loves me. So whenever I walk by that bed, I recognize that it was done for me.

Here’s what acts of service mean:

• When your partner asks you to help out with something, try to do it quickly, if not immediately
• Load and unload the dishwasher without being asked
• Fill up your partner’s car with gas
• Clean the kitchen nightly
• Start a chore chart to equally divide labor
• Do the chore that your partner dislikes the most
• Ask your partner every morning if there’s anything you can do for them today
• Keep a running honey-do list

It’s important that you and your partner know The 5 Love Languages and how to use them. Also, we recommend taking the quiz every couple of years because they change over time. 

Physical Touch as a Love Language

Physical touch envelopes all types of touching, including non-sexual touch like holding hands, cuddling, and massage.

For Ryan, whose love language is physical touch, I make sure to scratch his back every time I walk by.

Here are more examples of physical touch:

• Learn how to give a good massage (here’s our favorite couple’s massage class)
• Hold your partner’s hand
• Give an impromptu scalp massage
• Hug and kiss often
• Snuggle when watching TV
• Try these couples yoga poses together
• Give a back scratch while pillow talking before bed
• Intimate time

Our favorite way to accomplish meaningful physical touch is through our Couples Yoga Program and couples massage. 

Closing thoughts on the 5 Types of Love Language

Learning the different types of love language has tremendously improved our relationship. It may be one of the single-most helpful things.

Understanding the differences between how people want to experience love lets us communicate better and helps us put our effort in the right place. And it’s so simple.

I mean, why mow the lawn for your husband if all he wants is a back massage? It’s all so much more clear.

Over the years we’ve researched all about relationships, happiness, and communication, and The 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman remains one of the most profound and effective ways to strengthen relationships.

If you don’t have time to read the book, take five minutes to take the quiz, save your results, and bookmark this page. We recommend taking the quiz yearly because you’ll be surprised how often your love languages change as your relationship and life change.

For us, we both used to crave quality time together, but now that we work together from home, our love languages have changed to acts of service and physical touch.

Cheers to love (languages)!

Let us know what your love language is in the comments below and share more ideas on what makes you feel the most loved!

Good luck, and if you’ve come across other favorite strategies, feel free to comment and share below!

For more resources for couples, such as our ‘proven apps for married couples’ or our 1-Day self-guided non-religious marriage retreat, head over to our Healthy Couples page.

Or, download our Proven Tools for Healthy Couples below.