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I grew up in a Mediterranean country where talking with your hands is the norm, and is a very important part of communication. Hand gestures are not a "recommen

I grew up in a Mediterranean country where talking with your hands is the norm, and is a very important part of communication. Hand gestures are not a "recommended" part of the speech, they're part of the language that carries information -- in fact, in written text (where hand gestures don't exist) language is ever so slightly different in order to compensate this fact. Naturally, I picked this habit up myself. So, when I speak English, I use hand gestures all over the place -- as if I'm talking my mother tongue. I live in Boston, where I think talking with your hands isn't particularly popular... So in the last couple years I've been trying to lose this habit. My experience thus far has been pretty interesting and challenging. At times, it feels like talking without consonants, because for certain ideas my hand movement doesn't feel any less important than the words themselves.

naewonawonga 6y ago
>> I live in Boston, where I think talking with your hands isn't particularly popular... What made you come to that conclusion, or are you spending all your time amongst a very particular subset of the Boston population?
- gnulinux 6y ago
  Hmm I don't know it might be wrong. But a few people from different circles commented on my hand gestures, one said I have very expressive hand gestures, the other said I "talk like an Italian". None of this is bad of course, they were not pejorative remarks, but it made me think my hand gestures are probably too expressive for sn average American? I don't know. Who knows maybe these comments were biased too, or maybe my hand gestures are too extreme even for my own culture. Anyway, all I know is, "talking with your hands" is definitely an integral component of how I speak.