Q&A for How to Play Charades

You may select the time, but mostly people do it for a minute.

To signal the letters in Charades, hold the appropriate amount of fingers to your forehead; hold them to your arm for syllables; and in the air for the amount of words. You also may hold your hand to your ear for "sounds like," or make a pinching motion for "short word."

When someone guesses the answer correctly, they get a point and then it's their turn to act.

I personally like to look them in the eye and point to my nose, as if saying "on the nose." It's a pretty common tactic.

A movie is a hand held straight out with the other hand acting as a turning motion a few millimeters away from the palm. For a book, close your hands flat and open them.

You could have pairs act the clues out if you wanted to. If the whole team was acting it out, then there'd be no one to guess except the other team, and that's generally not how the game is played. (If you were acting out a clue for the opposing team, you'd have no motivation to do a good job, because you wouldn't WANT them to guess correctly.)

Usually, the place you are playing will have some sort of wall, in which case you can just tap that. If not, hold out your hands straight and indicate that the thing you're touching is solid, sort of how a mime acts out being stuck in a box.

After your teammates have gotten the drift that you are thinking of a person, they will most likely start to guess people by name. Just concentrate on showing your team who that person is, what they're famous for, etc.

The most common signal for "name of" something in Charades is to point at the nose. When someone says, "name of," then you can act out something from the category. Once they've guess the category, then you can act out the thing from the category you want them to guess.

The word is French in origin so pronounced 'sh' as in Chevrolet or chaise longue.

You can act out an animal, if it's recognizable. For example, you can lick your hand like a cat. You can also point to your ear, which means sounds like. You can use this for animals and names. Let's say the name is Chris Pratt. For Pratt, you could point to your ear and imitate a hat, meaning that it sounds like hat.

Whilst playing charades, a person patting themselves on the head might be trying to convey the word "pat" or, indicate themselves. If, for example, a player named Tom was acting out the book title, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" they might pat themselves on the head for the 4th word in their charade indicating themselves and them being "Tom".