If you don’t know your love language, you can take the test here. You will be choosing from two options at a time and you should think which of the two would be more meaningful to you and would make you feel loved.

5 LOVE LANGUAGES:

• words of affirmation – verbal appreciation, compliments
• quality time – undivided attention, quality conversations
• receiving gifts – that you put effort into, remembering anniversaries
• acts of service – helping with tasks
• physical touch – even non-sexual touches throughout the day

If your main love language is your partner’s 5th language, it can be a lot harder for them to learn to speak yours because for them it’s the least important. But all of them can be learnt if you understand why they’re important.

If four languages come up as equal, you can use any of them and you’ll get credit for it. A lot of couples don’t clarify their languages and are very surprised when the other one walks out. You might do acts of service for many years because it’s your main language, your partner knows it’s great and your friends are in awe, but if their love language is different, they won’t feel loved. It helps to explain that you’re doing the services because that’s how you express love but you need to try and learn the language of your partner.

If you grew up in a home where nice words were rarely spoken and you find out that your partner’s language is words of appreciation, it might be really difficult to even imagine making it work. Dr Chapman suggests to observe what nice things other people say, or find some in magazines, write them down, try saying them in front of a mirror and then try saying one of them to the person to break the silence.

From time to time, you can ask directly. On a scale of 0 to 10, how full is your love tank? What can I do to fill it tonight?