Gestures Around the World

Take a tour of gestures around the world -- from the French sign for "drunk," to obscene Brazilian gesturing, as well as the Bulgarian custom of nodding to mean "no" instead of "yes."

[andyw.]

In our class we had an exchange student from Bulgaria and every time, someone has asked her about something, she nod/shaked the head the other way😅

[dragonmanover]

In Iran, a thumbs-up means “Stick it where the sun never shines.”

[especialista]

In Uruguay the gesture when you stick your fingers in upward position and shake your hand means that you are not understanding what someone is saying, it's called "montoncito" (the gesture I'm talking about is the same used in Italy to emphatically referring to a certain topic or in Jordan and Israel to ask the other person to wait)

[skiv]

Thanks for this! I needed​ it for my homework.

[astrovisionmedia]

It's so interesting the way different cultures use symbolism to communicate

[giuseppeamato]

In Albania, they also nodded their head to say no and shake their head to say yes

[EasyENGU]

I will use it in my English class. Well done, guys.

[dragonmanover]

I can imagine how troubling it’d be to be in Bulgaria.

[Charles_s]

May the science of happiness be with you.

[smeraldoroze]

I Jordan that hand gesture also means "I'll show you" which is commonly used between Mothers to their children as in a threat when guests are around 😂

[nekkun_]

The italian gesture means "what do you want?!" !!!

[hee-jeong]

What a great material! I am working in a publishing house in South Korea. We create English books for local children. I am wondering if we could use your resources as a supplementary material. I would be a big help for local kids to learn different gestures in different countries.

[stefanlazarov]

The Bulgarian gesture signals of approval/negation by the head are completely WRONG. The second type of YES next to the nod in Bulgaria is a bowing head shake from the left to the right and it means rather OK than YES. The signal for NO is only a single down-up NOD, sometimes followed by a click sound. However, this is very regional and colloquial, and the standard gesture signals for YES and NO are commonly used in Bulgaria. The presented information here is incorrect, and now I am not wondering why I have heard the silly question whether this is true or false.

[timetraveler]

The russian ear gesture is also found here in Morocco

[lete]

There's interesting thing: Russians do not scratch their ear by going around the head. I haven't seen that before. Hello from Russia

[karinwiebe]

I could use this clip for teaching, except that when you turn the volume up enough for a group of language learners to hear the words, the jazz music is too loud.

[graz]

the music is too loud, but great content

[darkgamers]

Impactianz should hit the like button❤

[jingyunroderickhuang]

Ohh thats why all the Indians in Bollywood movies shake their heads for some reason lmao kinda funny lol

[motamaidejaigout]

Nobody twist their nose when they are drunk in France