Knowing your partner’s or your own love language is one thing.
But actually putting it into practice? That’s a whole different ballgame.
While we all have different ways of expressing and receiving love—also known as “love languages”—it can be tough when your partner’s love language differs from your own.
However, specific love language exercises can help you express your love language and help each other understand the other better. After all, communication is what long-term relationships are built on.
So, what should you try?
Well, it starts with a little bit of intention. You’ll want to set some time aside to practice the following exercises so you can speak and hear each other’s unique love language and start finding opportunities to express them!
Whether you’ve been together for decades or are just beginning your journey, these practical exercises will help you translate your love into a language your partner can fully understand and appreciate.
So, let’s take a closer look.
The Five Love Languages: A Quick Recap
Before diving into the exercises, let’s quickly revisit the five love languages identified by Dr. Gary Chapman. These include:
- Words of Affirmation: Expressing love through verbal acknowledgment, compliments, and appreciation.
- Acts of Service: Showing love by doing helpful things for your partner.
- Receiving Gifts: Feeling loved through thoughtful presents and tokens of affection.
- Quality Time: Experiencing love through undivided, focused attention.
- Physical Touch: Feeling connected through physical contact and closeness.
Most people have a primary and secondary love language, though they can appreciate all forms of love expression. In fact, when you take a love language quiz, the results will rank your love languages from most important to least.
For some people, they might have a balanced weight across all of them. For others, one or two might matter a lot more than the others. It all depends on the person!
Related Article: 4 Common Fight Languages Every Couple Should Know
Love Language Exercises
Grab your partner, determine your love languages, and then explore the love language exercises below! Start with your most important love languages.
Words of Affirmation Exercises
The following exercises create structured opportunities for verbal affirmation that prevent this important expression from being overlooked in busy daily life.
They also create a record of positive affirmations that can be revisited during challenging times. The cool part, too, is that they can be carried out over time and become a continuous piece in your relationship.
- The Appreciation Jar: Place a jar in a common area with small slips of paper beside it. Throughout the week, write down things you appreciate about your partner and place them in the jar. Set aside time each weekend to read them together.
- The Daily Voice Note: Send a voice message to your partner once a day expressing something specific you admire about them or something they did that you appreciated. Why? Well, because voice notes carry an emotional tone that text messages often miss!
Acts of Service Exercises
These two love language exercises help translate vague notions of “helping out” into specific actions that carry particular meaning for your partner. They also help establish habits of service that can continue beyond the exercise period.
Here’s what you can try:
- The Secret Service Mission: Without announcing it, identify one responsibility that typically falls to your partner and take care of it completely for a full week. Pay attention to how they respond.
- The Service Wishlist: Each partner creates a list of five tasks or chores that, if done by the other, would make them feel especially loved and cared for. Exchange lists and commit to doing one item from your partner’s list each week. (Alternatively, if one of you has a need for this love language much more than the other, you can also only do this exercise for that particular person.)
Related Article: 12 Simple Ways to Show Kindness to Your Friends & Family
Receiving Gifts Exercises
Receiving gifts exercises help gift-givers understand that thoughtfulness and personal significance matter more than expense or grandeur. They also help those who don’t naturally speak this love language practice the art of meaningful gift selection.
Try this: Create or find five small gifts, each appealing to a different sense:
- something beautiful to see
- something with a pleasant sound
- something with a delightful taste
- something with an appealing scent
- something with a pleasing texture
Give one gift each day for a week, explaining which sense you hoped to engage.
For special occasions (or just because!), create a simple gift that captures a significant shared memory or inside joke between you. The emphasis should be on meaning rather than monetary value.
This can be especially valuable to the person who cherishes receiving gifts; often, this combines words of affirmation and this love language (hitting two birds with one stone!).
Quality Time Exercises
It’s time to be fully present with the one you love! These exercises create containers for undistracted connection in a world full of competing demands for our attention. Set down those phones and try this:
- The Technology-Free Evening: Once a week, commit to spending two hours together with all devices turned off and stored away. The activity you choose matters less than ensuring you’re fully present with each other. (You could play games or use the following exercise to fill this time and re-connect.)
- The Question Game: Take turns asking each other thoughtful questions you’ve never discussed before. Examples might include: “What’s a dream you’ve never told anyone about?” or “What small moment in your childhood shaped who you are today?”
Physical Touch Exercises
These love language exercises help partners who value physical touch receive it more consistently, while helping those who don’t naturally think of touch to incorporate it intentionally.
The mapping exercise, in particular, also acknowledges that the way people prefer to be touched is highly individual.
- The Daily Connection Points: Identify three specific moments in your daily routine where you or your partner will make deliberate physical contact – perhaps a 20-second hug before leaving for work, holding hands during your evening walk, and a shoulder massage while watching TV.
- The Touch Preference Map: On a simple outline of a human body, each partner marks areas where they particularly enjoy being touched in non-sexual contexts (like having their hair stroked or receiving a hand massage) and areas they prefer not to be touched. Exchange maps and discuss, then implement!
Understanding One Another is Step One
Like learning any new language, becoming fluent in each other’s love languages takes time and practice.
There will be misunderstandings and awkward moments along the way – and that’s perfectly normal.
The goal isn’t perfection, but progress – gradually developing a deeper understanding of how your partner experiences love and expanding your ability to express your feelings in ways that truly resonate with them.
By regularly practicing these love language exercises, you’ll develop not just an understanding of love languages but a practical way that to transform your relationship, one loving expression at a time!
Related Article: How to Express Love to Your Partner in Their Love Language
Photo by Lê Minh