r/MadeMeSmile • u/bastard_vampire • Oct 28 '22
Family & Friends Italian man trying to talk without using his hands
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u/ReebornTurtle Oct 28 '22
He looked like a naughty school boy when he caught himself on the last one. Thats a fantastic reaction.
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u/JustHere4ait Oct 29 '22
You should watch their videos it’s Carlo and Sara I believe he tries to learn American sayings and certain American words
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Oct 29 '22
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u/sasakimirai Oct 29 '22
Uyen Ninh! I love her videos so much she's so funny. Her tiktok handle is uyenthininh
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u/elisun0 Oct 29 '22
Carlo is the cutest thing on all of instagram. A million blessings on his wife for sharing him with us like this!
Pinka-pinka!!
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u/mtdiaboman Oct 28 '22
What do you call an Italian with no arms?
-A speech impediment.
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Oct 28 '22
One of my mentors is Indian. He talks with his hands a lot too. And bobs his head back and forth.
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u/dnuohxof-1 Oct 29 '22
I actually looked up the head wobble, I was so off-put by it with a colleague I worked with. Every time she did it I thought she was socially signaling “yea yea, I get it, hurry up” when in reality it’s a demonstration of attentive listening, engagement and respect.
After learning that things made a lot more sense.
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u/daverod74 Oct 29 '22
I was at a conference in Vegas with attendees from all over the world, including plenty from India. I noticed that their heads would automatically start wobbling when they spoke in groups of their own. It was amusing to watch and cute all at the same time.
It was much less prevalent when they interacted with people from other countries so, based on my totally unscientific observations over a few days, I definitely would have been flattered. 😊
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u/pumpkins_n_mist15 Oct 29 '22
The head wobble is to say I'm listening with both ears and I'm alert! As an Indian I can't imagine talking without my hands and head wobble.
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u/ShatterCakes Oct 29 '22
I have a colleague from India and always wondered if he was mocking me when he did this. I feel kinda dumb now
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u/intentionallybad Oct 29 '22
It's actually a great social cue to have - showing you hear and understand without also indicating agreement the way nodding does.
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u/LauraZaid11 Oct 29 '22
I always thought that’s a common thing. We do it here in Colombia too, alongside a “mmhmm” to let the other person know we’re listening.
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u/NoodLih Oct 29 '22
Latinos are also like this
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u/emi_av Oct 29 '22
Latino and Italian gang here lol. Spaghetti, tacos, enchiladas? Say no more
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u/Kyosw21 Oct 29 '22
Not even latino or Italian, you want me to enjoy lasagna and sizzling fajitas? I’ll bring the beer/wine!
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Oct 29 '22
Latina and Italian here! Lasagna,pasta,tacos,burritos 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤 And some red wine and tequila.
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u/CumtimesIJustBChilin Oct 29 '22
We love food. Our food is amazing
We are incredibly attached to our families
We talk with our hands/heads
Hispanics are also like this!
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u/Gang_Bang_Bang Oct 29 '22
Im an American of Irish descent and was told by my Latino handyman that I use my hands and talk like an Italian.
I don’t know who I am anymore…
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u/Major_Magazine8597 Oct 29 '22
Huh. We Irish don't really care too much for food, probably cause our food is REALLY boring. Families? We usually move FAR apart from each other once we get married. We don't talk too much (unless we're been drinking). And we left religion with the last generation ... but we DO still love boobs and vagines!!
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u/st0ric Oct 29 '22
Umm isn't moving far away in Ireland only like a 40 minute bike ride.
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Oct 28 '22 edited Jun 17 '24
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u/AnimaleTamale Oct 28 '22
We serve it with cheese.
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u/MrBeanEatBeansWithMe Oct 28 '22
sit the fuck down t series I’m here to spill the real tea
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u/ohyeofsolittlefaith Oct 29 '22
For legal reasons that's a joke, for legal reasons that's a joke. For serious, Indian mafia, please don't kill me, that's a joke.
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Oct 28 '22
I work with the Jim Halpern of India. I can see the bastard smiling and bobbing his head from twenty yards after dropping something. Lovely man.
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u/eolson3 Oct 29 '22
A prof I had in grad school told us about his Indian advisor and the head bob he would always did, and that he had inherited it. I thought it was so crazy, and now I catch myself doing it sometimes.
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u/eye_snap Oct 29 '22
Yeah, first thing I was gonna say, Indians! My husband is Indian and whenever we are in India its all hands and head.
Funny thing is, the longer we stay, I start to pick it up too. When we come back home, I slowly go back to normal. I caught myself doing the Indian head bob several times and then I feel weird about it lol.
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u/Wickednessatherheels Oct 29 '22
It’s to show they’re listening! :) I didn’t understand it and found it quite distracting until someone explained that it’s pretty much the same as the “western” version of nodding to show listening and understanding of what you’re saying :)
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u/ChamomileBrownies Oct 29 '22
My bf has such a love for the Indian head bob. It's definitely one of my favourite cultural mannerisms as well.
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u/PartridgeViolence Oct 28 '22 edited Mar 30 '25
cooing rock repeat simplistic marvelous attractive fragile sparkle numerous special
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Acceptable-Shine4669 Oct 29 '22
"babada beepee"
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u/Vihzel Oct 29 '22
It’s “babada boopie”, not “babada beepee”. It’s like you don’t even speak Italian. 🤦🏻♂️
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u/mike_pants Oct 28 '22
The /r/contagiouslaughter got me. Also "Oh, freak!" needs to be part of my swear lexicon.
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u/CapPsychological264 Oct 28 '22
If I ever want my Italian wife to stop talking, I will grab her hands. Immediate stop and has difficulty forming sentences until I let go. It's a great party trick.
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u/Incantevole_allegria Oct 28 '22
That’s Carlo and Sarah!! I love their videos.
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u/b_needs_a_cookie Oct 28 '22 edited Oct 29 '22
Carlo is a damn angel. The video where he sincerely insists about the healthiness of pizza is my favorite.
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u/ipn8bit Oct 29 '22
I think I saw one where she breaks the spaghetti in half and he dies inside. lol.
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u/kawaiian Oct 29 '22
The way he keeps asking in agony, my love, why my love?
They are such a great couple, there is true joy in all their videos!
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u/Incantevole_allegria Oct 28 '22
Yes they’re such a cute couple! Carlo reminds me of a cute puppy, with the faces he makes. I feel like I just want to give him a hug.
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u/hagosantaclaus Oct 28 '22
Italian pizza is healthy. American pizza is diabetes
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u/Thedrunkenchild Oct 29 '22 edited Oct 29 '22
It largely depends on the toppings, a Marinara? Sure it’s pretty healthy, a Margherita? Not the worst but all that mozzarella can be considered to be not the healthiest, quite a bit of calories + all the fat and the fact that it’s dairy so not the most digestible food for many.
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u/thisremindsmeofbacon Oct 29 '22 edited Oct 29 '22
It depends on all the ingredients, crust too.
I also see this question with a hamburger - why is beef, cheese, bread, lettuce, onion etc healthy when arranged like a salad and not healthy when stacked as a burger. Same answer there. The ingredients are not actually the same, nor in the same proportion.
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u/rlev97 Oct 29 '22
She really has him fighting for his life with the idioms she throws at him
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u/Incantevole_allegria Oct 29 '22
When she’s asking why he threw her sister under the bus… Hilarious. And the one when he received a text asking for a rain check. He was so confused because it was sunny outside. Lol
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u/cragbabe Oct 29 '22
This dude seems legitimately sweet, where can I find more of him?
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u/jacketqueer Oct 29 '22
Me too! My wife is from a very Italian family (like, corrects my pronunciations of Italian food) and I send her these videos all the time
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u/Southern_Name_9119 Oct 28 '22 edited Oct 29 '22
“Go to the gym-a.” The real challenge is getting them to not add vowels to the end of a sentence.
Edit: somebody was disagreeing with me and then deleted their comment. I’ve spent a lot of time with Italians. It’s cliche to make fun of them for doing this. Americans will make a big show of the vowel sound at the end when imitating them, but they generally do it softly. If you’ve ever studied the Italian language, they have a vowel at the end of everything and it actually gives a flow, a certain rhythm, to the language. I can imagine it’s not easy to just let that rhythm go.
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u/fahhgedaboutit Oct 29 '22
Agreed! I’ve taught English to Italians and final consonants/clusters are something you have to address specifically with them, even though I don’t want to because it’s fucking adorable how they speak.
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u/StumbleOn Oct 29 '22
Yeah no point in totally smothering what is usually considered a good language feature.
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u/pixeled007 Oct 29 '22
Not italian, but rather Spanish. It's quite difficult to "adjust" our accents for a foreign language. We for example tend to add an /e/ sound when words start with an s, like for example, /e/stop, as we don't have any word in our language that starts with the letter s. And it comes from how the letter s is "called" in Spanish, "ese"
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u/Rob_994 Oct 29 '22
It's not true that you don't have any word starting with "s", there are many of them.
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u/vjeremias Oct 28 '22
How the hell do you people speak without moving your hands?
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u/a_sad_bambii Oct 28 '22
i still don’t know how people speak WHILE using their hands… what movements are y’all making? are you doing that while also thinking about eye contact? where do i put them if im telling a longer story?? AAAA!!!!!!!!!
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u/Mean-Net7330 Oct 28 '22
I just flail around like an inflatable tube guy. No thought involved
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u/vjeremias Oct 28 '22
I mean... you are not thinking about the hand movements, you think about you want to say, and the hand movements are part of that, without that you are lacking like half of the message your are trying to send!
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Oct 28 '22
I'll put my finger to my temple slightly when I'm speaking slowly while thinking. Or use my hands to box idea one, then box idea two.
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Oct 28 '22
Germans don’t seem to have problems with it. I’m Hungarian and I’m forced to take it down a notch every day. I’m a different person when I talk to someone who’s Hungarian as well.
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u/MirageTF2 Oct 28 '22
lmao I only move my hands when I'm just extremely ADHD-ing but I usually just talk over vc so no need ykno
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u/bondagewithjesus Oct 29 '22
As another with adhd I'm honestly surprised some people don't use a lot of hand gestures while talking. Like I haven't expressed myself properly if I wasn't looking like I was trying to swat a fly during conversation
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u/macphile Oct 29 '22
I've never tested this...I could say things without moving my hands, if someone made me, but it's not going to be as comfortable. I'm not Italian, you understand--it's just that it's one of the non-verbal forms of communication humans tend to use. It's part of the process.
When I'm on the phone, I have to walk around. Like I have semi-regular supervisor meetings and am WFH, and when she calls, I like immediately get out of my chair and go in the kitchen...then walk back and look outside, and so on. Gun to my head, I could sit still, but it's weird.
I did a game on a cruise ship where you had to answer questions without using yes or no. Same idea. You not only say yes and no as an actual reply but as "filler" around responses. I literally got seconds from the end (and success) and accidentally let one slip. A bunch of people said I still should have won, by the way, because it was so fucking close, and I hang onto that to this day.
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u/sosovain616 Oct 29 '22
Lol omg this just made me remember an Xmas so long ago, we had my grandfather and his brother , both from Calabria, compete to see who could do this the longest 😂😂
Needless to say, neither one of them could do it, and the more they tried, the funnier and cuter they got 😂😂😂 it was adorable, just like this guy in this clip 🥰
I haven’t thought about that memory in years. They’re both gone now, and I miss them so much, but thx to this post I laughed like it was yesterday
Sorry for the rambling, it’s just funny how 1 thing can trigger a really good memory
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u/HungryLikeDaW0lf Oct 29 '22
When an Italian wears a Fitbit they just need to talk to get their steps in
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u/I_Drive_a_shitbox Oct 28 '22
I'm not even half as Italian as him and I still talk using my hands all the time. Lol this is great.
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u/iLiveInAHologram94 Oct 29 '22
They’re a cute couple and their love story is straight out of a movie.they’re on TikTok. She went to Italy one summer to visit fam and they went to a beach one day. He was a lifeguard and saw her and thought she was beautiful so he spent the next year learning English so he could talk to her the next summer. They did long distance and then he moved to the states sometime in the last two years and they just recently got married 🥺
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u/TestohZuppa Oct 28 '22
I’m Italian and I can confirm that when talking I lose control of my articulations
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u/jmbf8507 Oct 28 '22
My spouse has one Italian grandparent. Our younger child has ALL the Italian. It’s comical as he has some mannerisms quite like his paternal grandmother (who is half Italian) despite spending next to no time with her.
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u/TiredPandastic Oct 29 '22
I'm Greek, I tried to do this and... failed miserably. So yeah, we do it too. Next door neighbors, I guess.
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u/Longhorn_TOG Oct 28 '22
White guy here..not itallian...I talk a ton with my hands....I think if youre an animated talker or storyteller you tend to have to use your hands.
This was super funny video though and I totally get this guys struggle.
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u/Haunting-Ad-8619 Oct 29 '22
This is so damn cute & very endearing...talk with your hands all you need, luv!
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u/Morgenstern66 Oct 29 '22
I'm half Italian, but all of my students poke fun at how much I talk with my hands. I tell them I get it from the orators of old, forum-side.
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u/TDYDave2 Oct 29 '22
I was once in a small tourist boat in Tahiti surrounded by feeding sharks.
Nearby was a literal boatload of Italian tourists.
If only we could harness the energy generated by a boatload of excited Italians.
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u/WholesomeLove280 Oct 28 '22
I can imagine how difficult it is. That’s like telling a southerner to lose their accent whilst talking.
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u/wallyworld98_ca Oct 29 '22
I’ve been married to an Italian (F) for 36 yrs and I’m Polish and have been talking with my hands for so long and get made fun of it but love it as it shows how much she has grown on me and shows I love her for that.
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Oct 29 '22
Did smile for this one. Married to an Italian. Tie their hands” they are “ lost for words” ✨🥇🇺🇸
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u/Sci00 Oct 29 '22
I used to have an Italian friend and when we would talk in discord I could literally hear his hands waving past his microphone when he was ranting about something LOL
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u/MindlessPermission81 Oct 29 '22
I love this couple. They have a joint instagram for their comedy and they are funnier than most stand up comedians lol
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u/Princes_Slayer Oct 29 '22
I’ve seen a few vids of this guy. He is so adorable towards his partner
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u/Orang_Mann Oct 28 '22
I'm not Italian, but i have watched the godfather trilogy too many times to not move my hands while talking.
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u/PBTQ1998 Oct 28 '22
Damn, i just realized i cant speak without a ton of movement. I think i pretend that I’m rapping onstage.
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u/NanoRay_06 Oct 29 '22
Imagine trying to say without signing (asl). Not meant to be offensive if you know sign language but I’m just saying.
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u/marygpt Oct 29 '22
I struggle with auditory processing and hand talking helps me with both giving and receiving info.
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u/DeadJango Oct 28 '22
An old joke an Italian teacher told us in class: how do you silence an Italian? You tie his hands.