Tell me exactly what I did wrong.

[Dom R]

Dom, you've got it partly right.
....
From the Gary Chapman website:

Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other.

So he's saying that you both express your love in your Love Language AND want love expressed in the same language.

nope, _you_ still dont get it, Lillie you're misunderstanding Chapman.

Using the "you speak english, they speak chinese" metaphor that you quoted, and extending it:

If you want your spouse to understand that you love them, in a meaningful way to THEM, you will learn how to say "i love you" in chinese.

However,
chinese is only describing the way that they need to HEAR "i love you".
It is not automatically the way that they express "i love you" to others. Nor is it "supposed" to be.

If they love YOU, they're suppose to learn how to say "i love you" in english, because that's the language that is most meaningful to _you_. If it was someone else (ie a child, or parent of theirs), they may need to learn a different language entirely.


He emphasises that, if you want to fully say "i love you" to another person, you need to learn THEIR language, to say it TO them.

It's not about learning their language, so that you can interpret how they say "i love you".

On the contrary;
for purposes of having people telling YOU that 'they love you'; it's important for you to learn which "language" means the most to you, and then _teach them your language_, so that it will then feel more meaningful to you.

the most important concept of the entire book, is that each spouse is supposed to learn the other person's "Love language", and speak it to them.(ie: find out how they like it, and then give it to them how they like it)
It is most definately not, "each spouse is supposed to learn how to interpret the other person's 'language', and learn to like it the way they say it".


Besides which, as I tried to mention in my prior post... The way you like to hear /i love you/, may NOT be the same way you express that feeling to others.
Some people go by "do under others as you would like them to do to you". but some people do not.

Hypothetical example: A mothering type, may feel the most comfortable doing "acts of service" for those she loves. HOWEVER... she may feel most loved, when she receives jewelry, and uncomfortable if others do "acts of service" to her, because she feels that it's "her job" to do that sort of thing, and they are userping her role.