Welcome back and thank you for all the support for Book 2! We’re so excited and can’t wait to have you join us for more stories on Growing Up Nguyễn in America.
This Chapter we identified our love languages from the Love Languages Quiz, delved into reasons why these are our love languages and how this is important to connection and belonging.
The Love Languages Quiz was founded by Gary Chapman who said, “What makes one person feel loved will not make another person feel loved. We must discover and speak each other’s love languages.”
The 5 Love Languages are:
Quality Time
Physical Touch
Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service
Receiving Gifts
The quiz was around 100 questions (very long, we know!) and we found that some of the questions, it was hard to decide which side we liked more. On the other hand, we did like that the quiz did not just give us one specific love language, rather we all have different percentages of how much we prefer each act of love.
Interestingly for our top love languages, we discovered each of us have different childhood memories that come up:
Hương: Bà Ngoại is the one that cooked for me, for our whole family. She even xúc cơm for me or you know, fed- spoon fed me. She did the grocery shopping. She babysat me, Hạnh, Hiếu and Hoàng and even other kids from you know, our friends and family or neighbors. Bà Ngoại was about service, like how she gave back to people or just how she provided her time for people like things that she can do.

Hoàng: I think we got quality time because, you know, we wanted you to pay attention to us!
Additionally, we started using and seeing the love languages in different aspects of our present lives.
Hiếu: For me, talking to Hương and Hạnh and learning that they don’t like to do the dishes and that they consider it an Act of Service helped me realize that doing small actions like that could lead to a better relationship between us.

No matter your love language, it helps to chat with your loved one to figure out how they feel loved. Because throughout this experience, we’ve learned that love languages are different for everyone but also are received differently by everyone.
In the end, Love Language is about belonging and belonging is when we are able to connect to other humans. We as human beings want to connect to others. When we do this well, that’s an expression of love.
If you enjoy taking personality quizzes, learning more about yourself and your friends and family we really recommend you join and take this quiz. Leave a comment below on your quiz results!
Thanks for joining us and stay tuned for the next chapter.
Additional Resources:
There are several assessments available we decided to take this one: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/
Here is a link to some helpful discussion questions designed by Dr. Gary Chapman https://stannavon.org/documents/2017/9/April%20Smolski%20handouts%20for%20webpage.pdf
Selection of Questions from this pdf:
1. Look back to your childhood. Did you feel adequately loved by your parents? How did they primarily express love? Based upon the results in your life, what impact did they have on the way you communicate love to your spouse (or family members or friends,)?
2. Think back on a time when you tried to communicate love in some form and it was not received as such; perhaps it was not rejected but simply not recognized. Why are good intentions, sincerity, and even “follow-through” not always enough?
3. (Quality Time) Look back upon the last major problem or challenge your spouse faced. Write out ways you could have better achieved the following: (a) less advice and more sympathy; (b) more understanding and fewer solutions; (c) more questions and fewer conclusions; (d) more attention to the person and less to the problem.
4. (Acts of Service) If we really want to serve our spouse, we need to do things for them the way they would want – not the way we think they should be done. Seek specifics from your spouse on a few new tasks he or she desires of you, and do exactly as instructed. OR Pick four tasks that you wish your mate would do for you. Be ready to receive the same, and work out adjustments that are based on mutual love rather than coercion or a legalistic swap. Keep practicalities like schedule in mind.
5. We often express love in our own primary love language rather than discovering our spouse’s language. Look back to the times when you felt you successfully communicated love. Did you do so through your primary language or that of your spouse? Are you willing to make a new commitment to speaking your spouse’s primary love language?
Here are some discussion questions for the 5 love languages for kids:
Growing Up Nguyễn is a story of four siblings holding onto our identity while fulfilling our parents’ dreams: the blessings and challenges of being Nguyễn in America.
You can listen to Book 2, Chapter 2 of Growing Up Nguyễn Anchor, Spotify, Apple, Google, and other podcasting platforms. Also, go check out our YouTube to see the video version of our podcast.
The Book 2, Chapter 2: Nguyễn It Comes to Love transcript is attached below. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @growing.up.nguyen, @huong.kong, @karinflair, @heddahustle, @its_benguinooo
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