Strange Japanese Gestures & Body Language

hey guys today i'm going to teach you japanese gestures and body language so let's start with the v sign so the v sign peace sign in japanese we say pisa pisa so you probably have seen japanese people make the v sign when they pose for pictures and i myself do that too so when we take a picture we say hi say cheese right we don't say say but the cheese part is the same yes cheese hai can be used like yes or okay so okay cheese so hi cheese and take a picture so if you go for purikura you know like the photoshop effect photo booth uh everyone does this you can do just you can just use one arm or two arms or three arms if you have them and somebody asked me once if it's cringy when a non-japanese person does it and of course not like you can definitely do it when you take a picture in fact japanese people think it's a bit weird when uh people don't pose like this you know instagram has become a huge deal right so everyone now like wants to look cool and pose real nice but uh still this is the standard way and it feels actually awkward not to make the v side so yeah your race doesn't matter if you want to do it do it it doesn't look cringy at all at least two japanese people it looks very normal and now if you're from the uk or australia get ready this is also very popular and this actually is more modern and more um i don't know it's more chic [Laughter] yeah this doesn't mean up yours in japan this is just another cool way to display the peace sign so i think in the us this doesn't mean anything bad i think it's just definitely we don't do this but just this and and the next part again might offend you but japanese girls also do this and this doesn't mean anything sexual okay this is actually to cover the chin or the jawline this actually makes your face look smaller that's what japanese girls usually want when taking pictures uh japanese girls tend to think that the smaller your face is the prettier you look so that's why it is it's just really to make your face look smaller and not licking any cats and just like this doesn't mean anything bad in japan this also doesn't mean anything bad this actually is used when you want to cheer for somebody so this gesture is called got to pause the english word guts plus pose but it's like fist pump like yes and japanese people also do this but we also do honestly i used i've used it before to us this looks like showing some muscles and like it's kind of like use your muscles so like especially when cheering for some sports theme uh you can definitely come back then like use your muscle like you know this or this don't look rude to japanese people in case you don't know what this means um it means like fu in some countries if it doesn't mean that a new country then good for you again thumbs up can also mean something bad in certain countries but in japan this is fine and also i'm not gonna do this but there is definitely here flipping somebody off so using your middle finger uh is not very common in japan like japanese people have seen it in tv shows like especially the western shows or western movies so we do know what it means but it's not very common uh instead we just use words right like eat uh my favorite is when people uh scratch their head uh with their middle finger it's very subtle oh no it's like my favorite is when you do the like music box now if you want to offend somebody in japan you can pull down your lower eyelid and stick your tongue out so it would look like this and um you probably see it in anime or tv shows um mainly kids do it like adults can do it but they only do it jokingly so it's kind of like this uh gesture so japanese kids don't really do this thing um it looks weird to me and looks it looks like um you're making some cute fairy ears or something so it looks actually cute so yeah actually when japanese girls take pictures they do this it's cute it looks cute to me at least if you want to taunt somebody you do this and it looks gross i know this gesture is called a camber so the etymology of akambe is like the inner part of your lower eyelid looks red right so akka red and the the i think that pie is called like akame you don't need to know that one like red eye like red eye part so yeah akame and then you can either say so you stick your tongue out with bare part or you can also just say bear bear so yeah i did it as a kid i think too like i don't care about you actually cause i almost poked my since we are talking about eyes let's talk about winking so i cannot wink i like awful when i try to wink like i look like i'm having a seizure so i'm not gonna try but anyway winking in japan is not common we do it maybe to seduce somebody or you could do it jokingly but yeah uh i've seen people in europe and in the us wink and it looks so flawless like if you do it naturally it's quite common right it's like uh i gotcha oh like it's not such a weird thing right i am sure it depends on the country but i've seen my friends do it and yeah my friends weren't like trying to seduce the other person like i've seen family members do to each other as well so obviously in that case i hope they warned him to seduce each other be careful who to wink at because the other person could get the wrong idea if somebody winks up me in japan i would think oh like do they like me okay can you guess what this means so when people do this it means crying so we can obviously we don't do this when we are actually crying we are actually really crying we'd like grab tissues and wipe our faces but if somebody says something mean or i want to pretend to be really scared or something i would do this as a joke so so when we pretend to cry japanese people do this gesture but when japanese women laugh we cover the mouth so if you carefully watch japanese people you would notice that a lot of japanese women including girls tend to cover their mouth so they go the shape of the hand doesn't matter it can be like this or like really really cover like all my female friends did friends not so much but i've seen my male friends do this they use the back of their hand and apparently it looks more masculine so they i've seen guys do and this doesn't look weird actually i think i've seen a manga character a male character in manga do this and they looked really cute [Laughter] so yeah it's not weird so in japan a lot of girls are taught that laughing without covering the mouth looks a bit unladylike so it doesn't look elegant so you should cover your mouth when you laugh and because it's ingrained so deeply in the culture japanese men tend to think that it looks very cute it looks very feminine when a girl does it but i'm quite a rebellious type so i don't do it but i actually did used to cover my mouth when i laughed because i was very insecure so i've never had braces so that wasn't the reason but i have dental crowns so i was very insecure about them and also a mean girl told me that the way i laugh is ugly very very mean so yeah that really made me not want to show my smile now i don't care so i don't really cover my mouth when laughing but i still do cover my mouth if i have to answer uh while chewing so generally that's not okay at least in japan but but sometimes you really have to because it's emergency and you have to answer then you'd cover your mouth and answer i think that's kind of normal outside of japan okay tsugi can you guess what pinching chick means so i think in the u.s you'd pinch baby's cheeks because they're so cute right so they're like so that's what uh pinching cheeks means i think like you want to show your function because they look so cute in japan you could do that but like especially for babies uh but pinching cheek usually means uh the the person is trying to check if they're not dreaming or not it's like the first thing they think if i do this people think oh then i'm thinking that something is unbelievable dreamlike so if you see a japanese drama and the student gets into the dream university or something and they might go to check that it's the reality and they're not dreaming you could pinch any part of the body but the common one is the cheek not not both sides i mean you could but usually just one side we also do this this is like i'm trying to be cute [Laughter] so yeah i have definitely done that when taking a picture because it looks cute so mainly girls tend to do this but it's really just a pose doesn't really mean anything it just looks cute but you can jokingly do this when you are trying to be cute and you're asking some favor on a guy is like please [Laughter] and you don't have to touch your cheek but you can also point your finger at yourself when you talk about yourself and that's another gesture that you might see a japanese person does when they talk about themselves they point the finger at themselves i hope i don't trigger anyone but the the gesture like the killing yourself with the gun that's not common in japan either uh because i mean there is no gun culture well almost none if you wanna pretend to kill yourself uh you would do the setbook away so you stop and slice it's a bit of a sensitive topic to talk about but it's some cultural thing that you should know like we don't use the gum to you know do the ah like oh kill me kind of pose it's okay to get pinky finger we call it call you be like child finger but you can also say aka the cutesy term with baby finger this can mean pinky promise the word for promise is yakuzoku [Music] and japanese kids do this very scary vowel in english it's just pinky promise and it sounds super cute japanese kids say you be kitty which literally means finger cut off japanese kids sing this horrible song so you be kidding [Music] [Music] i will make you swallow a thousand needles and then you say ubiquita we cut off our fingers really grim but it's you will be shocked to hear that it's so common it's so normal for kids to sing this song i swear everyone knows this song maybe it's a little different depending on the region but basically almost everyone uh threatens you to cut uh punch you 10 000 times and make you swallow a thousand needles if you don't believe me ask your friends so it's scary but this pinky finger can also mean a lover especially a female one this can be like the slang for girlfriend or lover so when a guy does this they're trying to ask if you have a girlfriend or lover or if you're with a girl and a japanese guy does this they're asking if it's your girlfriend or lover so yeah but this is not very common anymore i think it was much more common like many years ago and this can also mean full as in number four so how do you guys count using your fingers so some people might do like this one two three four five or some people might go one two three four five right a lot of japanese people tend to count from the thumb so ich ni and that's how i count as well there will be five works in three like three two one then they do three two one each by three counting objects or people then we go and after 10 minutes again yeah let me know in the comments how you guys count now that we are talking about numbers let's talk about money so this gesture means money or implying that the other person is rich or somebody is rich so you have to make a hole like this and move this way you don't really just go this way because this gesture means okay roger that okay all right and this means money so i know this in some countries means something sexual again uh you're making a hole so yeah you don't even need this finger but in japan this doesn't mean anything sexual it's not any hall like you're creating the alphabet oh so okay again this is not creating a hole for somebody to stick something in it just is like the shape of the coin okay in other countries i've seen people do this so you have to actually move your fingers like this i think and then you're i think counting or moving bills right like paper bills well we prefer coins in japan so if you get your boldness you can do ziggy can you guess what means so this means wow that makes sense wow now i understand i see i will listen i'm not going to check that out but yeah it's like ah makes sense or you can do this when you come up with a good idea so i was actually translating uh manga and the character did and the onomatopoeia was like pom and that's the sound for like knocking your yeah palm like this so and it's like ah i came up with a good idea so you probably would see somebody go ah soda like oh i got an idea so just hit your palm lightly right if you do this motion it's entirely different thing it is the grinding sesame seeds again i have a list on this and i think it's a good lesson to please watch it and this means you're sucking up to somebody or somebody is sucking up to somebody so yeah brown noser anyway this means i see right but another gesture that is very important uh if you want to live in japan is just nodding so if you're listening to somebody you won't do not like this you don't have to go and stop you have to constantly know like you are some doll like and make these sounds [Music] yeah it's very important okay like i've heard so many stories where a japanese company accepted some interns from the u.s and japanese bosses were very angry because they wouldn't note like other japanese and it looks like they're not listening um yeah so the the mannerism is very different so when you're listening to somebody you want to really like go this way and also crossing your legs is considered rude in japan it's fine if you're on the train or you're like at the you know restaurant and you're just having dinner with your friends or something but if you at the meeting for example and you're kind of a low-level employee or just like you're not the ceo or you know the boss then crossing legs is considered a bit arrogant so be careful chewing gums also is considered quite rude so don't do it during like an important meeting or you know when you're talking to somebody older than you like yeah okay to get this can you guess what it means this means come here so i think in the west people tend to do this gesture instead uh was in japan we do this and this i think in the us at least means go away but you want to do the shoe in japan we do like bigger emotions like don't get go away but this like tiny motion it's like come here so to mean come here this can mean quite a few things uh so this can mean please like oh my god so you're begging or you are saying sorry so when you want to say i'm sorry in japanese we go comment comment this is very common it doesn't look very apologetic if somebody just says come on without using any body parts oh man this is like i'm sorry not so if you're really sorry you want a girl come on come on so you probably have seen the folded hands emoji and that emoji could be used for praying i think in some countries or depending on the person uh but japanese people don't use this folded hands emoji as praying but rather like apologizing or begging or i heard that some people use it as high five and i guess it looks like high five but i've never used it as five five it's always like thing uh saying sorry or saying please or sometimes saying thank you like if somebody is doing me a favor uh and i want to thank them i also use the emoji like arigato japanese people when they think they also apologize at the same time they go ah it's very common even when speaking for me sumimaseni like if somebody holds the door for you you'd say to me i'm sorry thank you like we are saying sorry to mean like sorry for your trouble sorry that you had to do this for me uh it's very japanese thing to do saying sorry while thanking somebody anyway this can mean like sorry right you could do this when speaking formally so when thanks to myself but for business situation you want to bow so depending on how apologetic you want to look you changed how deep you go but the standard for business is 45 degree when apologizing so like like maybe this anyway uh 15. this is like saying hello um casual high and 30 degrees that's more formal uh so you want to do that when you enter your client's house or something but the most common one you probably see is the 15 degree one and that's like saying hi thank you casually so uh yeah it's i naturally do it if somebody again holds though for me i'd say [Laughter] i actually did this sorry thank you in the uk and i did that to old british people and they were they looked so confused they were like like what what's that girl doing yeah so i know it looks weird thank you sorry [Music] i used to do that even outside of japan when like crossing the road like if the car waits for me now i just raise hand because that's what the locals do but like i used to go like bowing while running and bowing while walking i know it probably looked very weird but yeah bowing is very important in japanese culture like saying hello kanichiwa sang sorry yeah when you're saying sorry to your friends you don't have to bow you can't man you actually instead of properly bowing like with your back straight it's more like you know doing this uh curving your back so you look smaller you know so you do ah because if you stand straight it looks like you're proud right and you should be but when apologizing you really want to look like you're weak you know you just want to praise the other person like i said you can like bow while walking right when the car waits for you uh but you can also do when you want to get through the crowd so you want to cut through some line or like you know there's a bunch of people and you have to uh go through them then you can they do this motion so it's like chop karate chop and you go he says it's really weird i don't know why we do it but we do all right uh before we finish i want to teach you that we don't do fingers crossed so this is not japanese at all people who don't know what this means if you do it also knocking on wood doesn't really exist in japanese culture so you you can of course do this and do this but expect that japanese people probably look confused but yeah that's it for today thank you so much for watching if you liked it please give it a thumbs up and make sure to subscribe to this channel and share with your friends also i have new merch so check out my merch store and i like to thank all my patrons and people who donated on coffee thanks to you guys i can keep making videos thank you so much and if you want to join them then go check out my patreon link i also do monthly group video chat now so yeah you guys can talk to me practice japanese all right thank you so much uh the last gesture is waving hand this is yeah very common in a lot of countries but in japan also very very very common when saying bye bye we wave hands and it doesn't look childish okay bye bye

Channel: Japanese Ammo with Misa

Views: 223,730

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Id: N5s_CiKgXI0

Length: 33min 43sec (2023 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2022