English Conversation: The Meaning of Hand Gestures
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Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you
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all about how we use our hands in English.
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So there are many ways we use our hands in English. I'm going to
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teach you a lot of different ways we use them. A lot of students get very confused with this,
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because the way we use our hands varies from culture to culture, so what we do in Canada
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and England and the U.S. might be very different than with what you do in your country. Okay?
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So pay close attention to these differences.
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So to start with, let's look at: "knock on wood".
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If you're living in an English-speaking country,
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you may have noticed sometimes people have a wooden object or a desk, a table, something
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made of wood, and they knock on it.
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Okay? You might wonder: "What does this mean, knock on wood?"
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In English tradition, if you say something good, for example:
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"I did very, very well on my test. I killed my test. I did amazing on my test",
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you might knock on wood to make sure that you don't jinx it. Okay?
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I'll give you another example.
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Imagine if I want to go on a picnic, and I'm a little afraid about rain, I might say:
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"Oh, you know, today's supposed to be a very sunny day. Knock on wood."
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I'm knocking on wood to prevent rain. Okay? So it's a superstition
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we do in order to kind of protect ourselves from the
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opposite happening. Okay? One last example:
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-"How did your interview go? How did your job interview go?"
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-"Oh, it went well." [Knocks] Okay,
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so that's why we knock on wood, it's a superstition.
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All right, let's look at some of these other ones. "Quotes".
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A lot of students have asked me: "What does this mean?"
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Okay? So, for example, somebody might say:
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"Yeah, she's beautiful."
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Or: "He's really smart."
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This kind of has a sarcastic tone to it. It means somebody
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has said somebody is beautiful, but you don't believe it. Or somebody has said somebody
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is smart, but you don't believe it. So if you hear someone saying something, and you're,
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you know, pretty much using their words but you don't believe it, you can do quotes. Okay?
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Another example: "Yeah that movie was awesome."
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Okay? So it means you don't believe it.
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English is fun. Your teachers might tell you English is fun.
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When you're talking to your friends,
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you might say: "English is fun", if you don't believe it.
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All right, the next one: "crazy". All right? In English, if we think someone is crazy,
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we go...
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Okay?
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So, for example: "That guy, he's very..." [Clicks tongue]
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It means he's very crazy. Okay?
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"Fingers crossed". A lot of the times in English, we take our fingers and we cross them, and
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we go like this. This means we're hoping something happens. Okay? So, for example:
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I hope you like this video, fingers crossed.
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Or: I hope I did well on the test, fingers crossed. Okay?
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So this means you hope something is happening.