Italian Hand Gestures PART 1 

I'm Italian and I use these gestures and many more every day. Is it really so strange?

In Spain a lot of these are used. Not all the time, just sometimes. Still though, I got most of them.

I loved the video (I'm italian), but I read the comments and saw that some italians don't agree. Thing is, Italy is a small country but there are so many differences between each region. These gestures are more commonly used in south Italy for example.Just think about the fact that we have a lot of dialects in the same region: it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetti_d%27Italia

Me la stavo facendo sotto dalle risate!! Bellissimo (anche se un po' esagerato)

@EnRicoTesoro I learned it from my old school teacher (south Italian teacher, i think that came from Reggio Calabria). But i lived for some years in Treviglio and Bergamo, where people use that word in a wrong way, offensive way, like ignorant or worse..

thanks i like

AH HAHAHA Troppo forte!

I am hungry does not have that movement of hands, does not have no movement of hands

cool. i'm learning Italian. this might be useful for me when i go to my trip to Italy

please to whoever will come to Italy.. don't use the gestures showed in all these videos you see on youtube, you would only look like a stupid character out of some movies from the 50's! apart from old people in the south of Italy or someone lost in the countryside, none of us use them so blatantly, we are way way more subtle or not use them anymore at all

I'm Italian and I actually do not make all that gestures while I'm talking...!!! If you want to check out my videos, I teach Italian language here on youtube ;) All the best to you all xx

My favorite was "Madonna mia!" - my mom said that all the time!

Quando ho fame non faccio quel gesto, e sono italiana... When I'm hungry I don't do that gesture, and I'm Italian...

ahahahaha I'm Italian but I've never seen 3 or 4 of these gestures before! I didn't know they even exist XD

Omg I'm Saudi Arabian and we have the same hand gestures!!! Not all of them but most of them

To all the italians commenting: what the f++k is your problem? Why are you offended by this? We DO use hand gesture: someone use them less, someone use them more; and yes, in these videos they can be a little bit exagereted, and we certainly don't constantly do hand gestures like if we were deaf, but you CAN'T say these are stereotypes. I think you don't even realize you use them while speaking. We use them to underline the concept we're talking about, to enfatize a sentence, to communicate in a crowded place or in silence without being heard. And i'm from Rome, that is neither south or north Italy, neither countryside, neither a small city. Relax people, take it easier, there is nothing offending in this.

Complimenti per i gesti ,di cui io non sapevo vivendo in Italia da 20 .mi avete fatto fare una risata,perché li trovo molto divertenti ed espressivi！😄

I love this!

i laughed my ass off reading this lol

i love the Italian accent!

Also in arabic we use the same gestures

Hahaha friend of mine is italian 😂 and this is accurate .. I've been seen it all lol

wtf!!! Most of these are used also in India!!!

this is just bad. I mean, I appreciate that you try to explain or learn our gestures, but some of those are just wrong or don't exist at all...wtf is the one "I am hungry"? Or the "good idea"? I never ever seen or used those...

Also in arabic we use the same gestures

Rivisitate quei gesti perché alcuni sono sbagliati...😉🍕🍝 👁🧏🏻‍♀️🙅🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🇮🇹✌🏼🤘🏼🤙🏼🙏🏼👍🏼🤌🏼

In Sweden you would not easily say, ''I don't care''. People are not rude to others there. I never saw somebody look up and down on another in Sweden, for instance, so we also don't have the hand gestures for things like that. But I like them anyway. They are funny.

Just remember that gestures are really, really informal. REALLY.

la mia famiglia è italiana ma viviamo in Australia e usiamo ancora questi gesti delle mani!!

ma che cavolata. cos'hai un complesso di inferiorità? se non conosci queste mimiche o sei della Val d'Aosta o di Bolzano. Io sono romagnolo, non certo meridionale, ma ovviamente sono consuetudini e a meno che non debba tenere una conversazione formale o di lavoro, la maggior parte dei gesti, per enfatizzare certi concetti, li uso o li ho usati.

Veramente son tutti veri, "ho fame" dalle mie parti non lo usiamo molto, al massimo strofiniamo la pancia, me del resto, non così esagerati, ma si fanno tutti, è che non tutti li fanno, io ad esempio ne uso meno della metà. Non è irrispettoso, è un video simpatico che insegna anche come non farsi fraintendere

These look a lot like Mexican hand gestures I wonder if the Aztecs came from Italy

what happens when a english speaker is voiceless or mute? :)

Hahahahaha. Oh my gosh, I'm part italian and I ALWAYS get made fun of for talking with my hands! This is great!

i'm from argentina and I use the exact same gestures in the same way... i'm descendent from italians but i never meet anyone, so this comes in a weird corner of my genes.

Stereotipi...

Very cool. Although I can't remember them all, but I can start to see that their gestures do mean something! Very nicely done!

PROUD OF MY ANCESTORS ,VIVA ITALIA!!!

Yeh we have allot of hand gestures in England to. :-)

Wow I discovered that in Mexico we do use some of those hand gestures! Looks like we do share more than just same flag colors, romance tongue origin, good cuisine and warm people.

We use a lot of these gestures in conversation here in Brazil too.I think some are pretty clear and it's probably used in many places around the world.

Im going to be taking Italian in a couple semesters and can't wait. I get my Italian from my Fathers side and i definitley have the mouth like an italian. When I would be getting corrected or my mom was being stern and I kept running my mouth she would say, 'would you shut your damn mouth you Dego and listen?' hahaha. Lo amo la mia mamma. :)

Per cortesia,vedete di imparare l'inglese. State parlando il solito inglese dei maccheroni

Ciao ragazzi! I like it. It makes me happy...

This is such an amazing culture. I use my hands a lot when I am talking and my friend told me about how Italians do the same thing. I decided to look it up

Love the clip Nada!! I knew some of them, and learned a few new ones. Can't wait to try them out in October!

my italian teacher showed this to us XD

My nonna and papa use these gestures all the time ^-^ now I'm trying to learn Italian. And this helped:]

Cortonaaaaaaaaa!!! :D

very nice it is sad that what not being in Italy can do to your identity

Not strange, just different. When I moved to the Middle East my Arab friends thought it was hilarious how “Anglo” (uptight) I was. When I returned to the US it took a while return to my “Anglo” ways.

@darthhvader is "delizioso", the Z sounds like /ts/.. like in "pizza" ;)

i'm brazilian, but my mom's family part is italian, because of them i use these gestures everyday lol

Unlike other Italian hand gestures videos, this one is really well done. Freddie88 below gives some good hints and of course not all Italians use all these gestures but the ones I've seen in this video are known by everyone so non-Italians can hve fun using them when visiting Italy and be sure they'll be understood;)

LOVE from Turkey!! I love that hand thing!

the gesture that they indicate as "sorry" it doesn't mean simply sorry, more specifically it means "there is nothing left" "I have no more"

hahahaha bravo!

Vanacuffo!! ^useful(:^

I absolutely love this video--I come from a large Italian-American family (da Roma) and this video cracked me up. So fun!

of course foreign people shouldn't try this 'cause they must come naturally, so if there's any chance foreign people could use these, it's when they have lived really intimately with someone italian or lived in Italy for, like, 20 better 30 years.

ahaha I meant come to Italy

omg...the "what are you doing gesture" and "madonna mia" gestures my host mother did those to me all the time..haha

Italian IS one of the most complicate languages, our language came from Latino, and you know what? In Europe most languages derivated from Latino because of the ancient roman empire, so basically we gave our imprinting to a lot of languages. Many languages, like english, have words that we can translate in 5-6 similar words, we have a big vocabulary.

Very cute! I think I will start using some !!!!

@Amendolia37 You can agree with Mike, and in fact you both have lived in Italy only for a period and then you left. Remember that Italy has a lot of different Regions and if you sum up the attitude of people from Naples, Rome, Florence, Palermo and so on... you will have the whole bunch of gestures you see in this video. I have been living my whole life here in Italy (36 years) and I'm a language teacher and my opinion about this matter counts more than what you say... sad but true.

Im just saying that, i've been to many countries and i've seen really rarely ppl using so much hand gesture. it probably isnt weird to you, coz you're italian, right??? but i'm not italian, and i remember pretty well my first months in italy, i was just amazed by it!!! i dont get why you get all worked up, i didn't say there was something bad about gestures, but to foreign ppl like me, in the begining its just confusing, get it now??? btw, i've been living in italy for 5 years, no joke here

Oh Gosh! It's like learning sign language and verbal language at the same time.

I can - without gestures. Take this with a pinch of salt, it's a gesture tutorial. You are likely to see some of this if a conversation gets heated. The Italian language is probably the closest you can get to the Latin language (sounds and words). I doubt Rome wasn't built in a day, but they did not need all those gestures to make it happen.

Love that during the come here\go away bit the other guy just moves both arms and shoulder,which is another gesture! :) I don't even know how to express that in english.this is like:"I don't understand,I don't know what to do about it!" but it isn't quite correct.These vids are quite useful anyway!brava! :)

This is really crazy to me as an American who speaks French and Spanish but not Italian. It's like, I understand, but it's still strange.

@terroncinopugliese XD It must be great to live where people are so emotional and happy! Where i am from you can not even talk to your neighbour on the bus cause people will assume you are an alcoholic or a junkie : - ) It is like we are all depressed sometimes.

Im looking for some translations..english to italian, and was wondering if anybody could help me out? Im actually trying to get in touch with my former gf, and she is a sucker for italian;) And no google translate for me, dont trust that stuff for this. Msg me if you feel helpful:)

@h3ll0gudbye no one asks foreigners to act like us, the gestures are just something more that we add to the words. the italian language is enough complicated,deep and rather wide and doesn't need to mime anything. Our gestures are simply something deep inside of us.

@mikeydee729 Well, I' italian and I still live in Italy and I can say that these gestures are often used. Maybe, as a young child (only 10 years old) you didn't use them. But I can assure you that me, my family and friends, we use a lot of these hand gestures.

@mikeydee729 Hey man, I'm Italian and I was born in Italy and curretly live in Italy and I must tell you that we really use all the gestures you see in this video. We do use all fo them!!! Where the fuck did you live in Italy? May be close to the French or Swiss border?

@mikeydee729 I have to disagree. I am Italian and all the gestures are real and are used, especially by older people. the use of gestures varies from according to the place, I mean go to Neaples or Rome and you will see a lot of them. In the video some of them are exagerated, but they are real.

I agree with " STLIQUID" . Stop trying to portray Italians or should I say stereotype them, like The Sopranos. I have great admiration for Italian raised and born in Italy. Italy is blessed to have such natural beauty and has all my respect for keeping their tradition.

I am..it's possible old generations might use hand gesture more but no one of the old people I know or I get long with are into this "desperate " hand gestures..come one u're simply exaggerating..don't take it personally btw ;) ;)

it seems like yanks don't use their hands at all... a lot of this gestures are natural in anyu country where people actually can use their hands... the "come on" "go away" gesture, for example.. was just too much... poor yanks, are so naive.

Come mai a Cortona? Just curious to know how you chose the location and the people in the video - because I lived in Cortona for 8 months and recognize both the location and some of the people! Really cute video, thanks - i shared it on facebook.

Just for the record, it means the same thing in the US. It's just not used much, because it's a lot easier to simply flip someone off. I have no idea how that could have translated as simply "I don't care", as it's a pretty offensive gesture.

We use so many of these hand gestures in Tunisia as well lol, not all of course but about maybe 80% of them

@mikeydee729 I'm italian, i born in Italy, i live actually in Italy and I assure that we USE the most of these gestures!!! and i assure that we use also the one 0:39, sorry! and i think this is a nice video..

I think many Latins use hand gestures as well and some are the same in any language like pointing to the eyes meaning pay attention or keep an eye on... I'm not Italian pero si soy latino ;)

O senhor italiano parece Rogério Cardoso, o Rolando Lero Hheheheheh The old italian man seems like Rogerio Cardoso, a brazilian actor that made "Rolando Lero". Seems a bit like Tom Hanks too

Oh, shut up. Most of those gestures are not rude at all. I know a lot of people from the north that use them commonly. They're just not so exaggerated as it's shown by the video.

The gestures are real, but it's a gesture tutorial. It's not really like that - you see people acting like this when a conversation gets heated. In the north, you hardly see this anyway.

I'm an Italian (living in Italy), and it's not true at all that "almost no-one uses these gestures here in Italy", in fact MANY Italians do, especially in the SOUTH of the country.

XD is not we who speak out loud .. are you who speak too soundlessly XD every time I established a conversation, I do not understand you, and I have to ask to repeat very often XD

@Freddie88 erm, no. When you're hungry you don't do that even in Southern Italy. It means you don't like someone (i.e. "mi sta/stai sullo stomaco, etc...location may change:P)

@italieno well if you think that we have invented modern theatre.....we did need to perform some kind of act and this is probably reflected in everyday life by most italians.

@mikeydee729 I completely disagree. I'm italian and live in italy and I USE EVERY gesture in this video except for the one of "delicious" that we use only with kids.

marco in a box has 60 italian hand gestures he teaches and also italian proverbs. check them out. my granddmother, maria bartollota ledt itsly and moved in america thru ellis island. she had an older sister vincenta and her parents were salvatore and maria. Is there any place to search for recorda of my family. my mother ; not my mothers mothwr saod she was from aicoly but i dont think that adccurare.

@springbabee yes, it does. "knock on wood" is the english equivalent but of course, it's not literally the same because there's no such idiom/gesture in english:)

this demostration is very stupid, because le italian people are very friendly and this is not true the gestures are more big compareted at reality.

@italieno how pointless and boring this was. next time please save it to me. Go and ask Carlo Goldoni if he didn't invented modern theatre. Saluti!

@mikeydee729 I don´t know where do you lived maybe in north Italy cause in the rest of the country the people still use to gesticulate like in the video.

I have many Italian friends and nobody is using that signs ... never seen them ... this is an unreal clip and full stereotype. Many friends in Europe use their hands when they talk, it is a normal behaviour, not linked to the nationality !

Really? I was just at a film festival and asked 10 different Sicilians if they are Italian. They all said that they are from Sicily, not Italy. Spend 2 minutes researching the social & cultural aspects of Sicilian pride and you will learn more about this.

I am planing on a tri to italy and i speak no italian so i guess i have to use guestures lol .. can't even say hello my name is chris lol