Charades. The list of signals and gestures to help you through this torturous game are endless. Below we have listed the most universal and the most common. Hopefully these will make the next game you play just a little more bearable!
Standard signals
A number of standard signals have come into common usage in charades, though they are not required.
To indicate the general category of a word or phrase:
Person
Stand with hands on hips.
Poem
Pretend to hold a paper and pretend to read the poem.
Animal
Pound your fists on your chest (like a gorilla), cup your hands next your head and hop up and down several times (like a bunny rabbit), or move very slowly so as to imitate a sloth.
Book title
Unfold your hands as if they were a book.
Movie title
Pretend to crank an old-fashioned movie camera.
Play title
Pretend to pull the rope that opens a theater curtain, or place both hands out, palms facing the audience and touching at the thumbs, and draw them apart like a theater curtain.
Song title
Pretend to sing (often on one knee with arms outspread, in the manner of Al Jolson).
TV show
Draw a rectangle to outline the TV screen.
Quote or phrase
Make quotation marks in the air with your fingers.
Location
Make a circle with one hand, then point to it, as if pointing to a dot on a map.
Event
Point to your wrist as if you were wearing a watch. Alternatively, hold hands up beside your head and make “spirit fingers” (wave fingers back and forth frantically) simulating confetti or a crowd in the background.
Computer Game
Using both hands out stretched move thumbs like using a game pad.
Website
Hold your hand out, palm down, horizontal to the ground (as if holding a computer mouse). Make a sweeping motion side to side, as if moving a coconut half on table (“navigating”), then stop and tap index finger (as if “clicking”).
“Think!” or “intangible” (anything else)
Make the “crazy” signal, i.e. point to your head and wave your finger in a circle.
To indicate other characteristics of the word or phrase:
Number of words in the phrase
Hold up the number of fingers.
Which word you’re working on
Hold up the number of fingers again.
Number of syllables in the word
Lay the number of fingers on your arm.
Which syllable you’re working on
Lay the number of fingers on your arm again.
Length of word
Make a “little” or “big” sign as if you were measuring a fish.
“The entire concept”
Sweep your arms through the air.
“On the nose” (i.e., someone has made a correct guess)
Point at your nose with one hand, while pointing at the person with your other hand.
“Sounds like” or “rhymes with”
Cup one hand behind an ear, or pull on your earlobe.
“Longer version of”
Pretend to stretch a piece of elastic.
“Shorter version of”
Do a “karate chop” with your hand.
“Plural”
Link your little fingers.
“Proper Name”
Tap the top of your head with an open palm.
“Past tense”
Wave your hand over your shoulder toward your back.
A letter of the alphabet
Move your hand in a chopping motion toward your arm (near the top of your forearm if the letter is near the beginning of the alphabet, and near the bottom of your arm if the letter is near the end of the alphabet).
A colour
Point to your tongue, then point to an object of the color you’re trying to convey. If no objects are available, then pantomime an object that typically possesses the color in question.
“Close, keep guessing!”
Frantically wave your hands about to keep the guesses coming, or pretend to fan yourself, as if to say “getting hotter”.
“Not even close, I’ll start over”
Wave hand in a wide sweep, as if to say “go away!” Alternatively, pretend to shiver, as if to say “getting colder”.
The hand is moved as if flushing a toilet, meaning forget whatever has been done till now and to start afresh.
“Stop yelling at me, all of you! I can’t hear any of your guesses.”
Throw your arms down to your sides, like a mummy, and jump up and down 3 times like a little baby.
Alternatively, use your fingers to plug your ears so as to impair your hearing, and shut your eyes until the guessing has ceased.
“A synonym”
Clasp your hands together and then, rotating your clasped hands from the wrists, simulate multiple figure 8′s.
“The opposite” or “the antonym of what you are saying”
Form each hand into a hitchhiker’s thumb signal, then with the backs of the hands facing away from you, cross your forearms and make the thumbs travel in opposing directions, thus “opposite”.
“Stop, work on something else”
Hold both arms out in front of you, palms of your hands waving, facing your teammates, while simultaneously shaking your head, eyes closed.
Signals for common words
Some conventions have also evolved about very common words:
* “A” is signed by steepling index fingers together. Following it with either the stretching rubber band sign or “close, keep guessing!” sign, will often elicit “an” and “and”. (sometimes “and” is signed by pointing at ones palm with the index finger)
* “I” is signed by pointing at one’s eye, or one’s chest.
* “the” is signed by making a “T” sign with the index fingers. The “close, keep guessing!” sign will then usually elicit a rigmarole of other very common words starting with “th”.
* “That” is signed by the same aforementioned “T” with the index fingers and immediately followed by one flattened hand tapping the head for a “hat”, thus the combination becoming “that”. Following this with the “opposite” sign indicates the word “this.”
* Pretending to paddle a canoe can be used to sign the word “or.”
* For “on,” make your index finger leap on to the palm of your other hand. Reverse this gesture to indicate “off.” The off motion plus a scissor-snipping action makes “of”.
* Other common small words are signed by holding the index finger and thumb close together, but not touching.
Looking to buy Charades? Click Here: Charades Family Edition
Hey guys, My name is Jenny Tseng and I am now in Manila. Have you seen any website that is quite the same as this ESL teaching site. I am not interested in buying essays, appreciate if you let me have the link to any such free sites. Write me.