Well, hello and welcome to this
English lesson about facial expressions.
Facial expressions are when we use the
muscles in our face to make different
expressions that mean different things.
Now, I do have to say that these facial
expressions will be connected to English words and the
emotions and feelings we have or what we're experiencing
that causes us to make that expression.
And it might be different in your part of the world.
So not only will you be learning about facial expressions,
um, and what we call each one, but what it
means if you are in my part of the world.
I think most of them will be the same.
I think a smile is a universal facial expression.
But there's a few other ones that might
be a little bit different, and we'll.
We'll find out as we go along.
So, once again, welcome to this
English lesson about facial expressions. A smile.
So you'll notice I said a smile,
but you can also decide to smile.
So you can use it as a noun or a verb.
This guy has a really nice smile.
I wasn't planning on doing all the
facial expressions myself, but I am smiling.
Well, um, so when you smile, it
usually means you are experiencing joy.
It usually means that whatever you are
And this shows the people around you that you are
experiencing that emotion, that you are very, very happy.
So I smile a lot as I go through the day.
I guess it's an important thing I use as a teacher.
I think smiling communicates to students and viewers like
you that I'm in a good mood and maybe
it will be pleasant and enjoyable to learn some
English from me or something else.
A frown is something we use to express dissatisfaction.
If I see a student using their phone and
class, I might look at them and frown.
So I'm saying to them, I don't like what you're doing.
If I went to a birthday party and they served food
I didn't like, like, let's say there was a party for
me and let me think of a food I don't like.
But let's say they serve pie and I really
wanted cake, I might frown to show my dissatisfaction.
When you are satisfied or when you
express satisfaction, you're happy with something.
When you express dissatisfaction, it means you not
happy, you are disappointed, you are not satisfied.
It's kind of like trying to mimic
the person in the picture here.
A scowl also has a little bit of anger to it.
So it's dissatisfaction, but you're also a
little bit angry about the situation.
Like if someone tells me, um, there's a mess on the
floor, you have to mop it up, I might scowl because
I'm, like, angry that I have to do that job.
I might be annoyed or angry, or I might
be thinking, I do not want to do it.
But it's a look of dissatisfaction with
a little bit of anger mixed in.
At least annoyance mixed in a grimace.
Have you ever hurt yourself, twisted
your ankle, maybe stubbed your toe?
When you're cutting your fingernails, you accidentally clip a little
too close to the skin, and you might go.
Generally when we grimace, it's in response to
being injured, even maybe seeing someone getting injured.
If I saw someone driving their car and
they hit another car, I might go, because
I feel like, oh, maybe people got hurt.
Probably the most common grimace for me
Um, or let me see, how else do I hurt myself?
Sometimes, I guess, just playing a sport.
And you twist your ankle, maybe.
I played volleyball once, and the volleyball hit the ends
of my fingers and jammed my fingers in a bit.
And I was like, I grimaced when that happened.
So to grimace, to make a facial expression because
of pain, a grin, same as a smile.
There is literally no difference when
Sometimes we say, he was grinning from ear to earth.
So your smile or grin is so big.
Um, we say it's from ear to ear.
But a grin is, again, simply an expression of
happiness, an expression of joy, an expression of contentness.
You are very content and happy.
So hopefully you grin and smile a lot today.
Again, no difference between the two.
You know, he had a large smile on his face.
He had a large grin on his face.
They mean the same thing, disgust.
So we've shifted a bit in terms of the words I'm using.
This, I would say, is a look of disgust.
So he is expressing a feeling of disgust.
Probably the best example I can think of is
if food has gone bad and smells funny.
If I smell the milk container, I might do that.
I just saw myself on the screen.
I might express disgust, like.
That would be another word we would use in English.
You can also express disgust at what people are doing.
The only thing I can think of is
you're walking home late at night and you
see someone who's intoxicated and they've decided to.
Yeah, in English we would say take a
And you might be like, can't they find a bathroom?
Um, so anyways, you might have an expression
of disgust or a look of disgust.
And then, of course, sometimes you have surprise.
If I walked into a room the night of my
birthday and turned on a light and there were 50
people in the house and they all yelled surprise.
I would have a look of surprise.
I would be like, what is going on here?
it's a surprise party for you.
Sometimes people will give you a gift
and you weren't expecting a gift.
You'd be like, you would have a look of surprise.
A look of surprise because he has received a gift,
maybe unexpectedly, but he already has a party hat on.
So I'm assuming he kind of knew this would happen.
So you can have a look of anger on your face.
You can see this guy does not look happy.
Anger is associated with the emotion of
being angry, being mad at someone.
Um, I'm going to try and make an
angry face that kind of looked like.
I guess I sounded like a pirate there.
And you, you kind of scrunch your forehead together.
You see how, like, when you draw an angry
person, you put like a little line above their
eye so it looks like there's like. Yeah, I don't know.
An angry expression is used to let people know that
you are upset, you are annoyed, you are out angry.
they said or what they're doing.
Or even in a situation, you might come home and
your house is flooded because it rained all day.
Yet you might be angry about that. So you're.
but you're angry at the situation.
you can see on people's faces.
sad as the guy in the picture.
Let me make it bigger for a sec.
When I try to look sad, I just look.
If you are feeling sad, maybe something
bad has happened in your life.
Um, maybe even something more serious.
Maybe someone in your family was hurt.
Maybe someone has passed away.
You will feel sad and you will
have a facial expression like this.
Definitely not much expression.
But also you can just see there's a look of concern,
there's a look of just not a lot of energy.
Um, feeling sad because something happened in
this person's life that makes them sad.
Fear.
it generally means you have big.
Your eyes are open really big.
Um, if someone jumped out from
And said boo and tried to scare me,
by the way, it was Halloween last night.
It would probably look similar to
the look I gave of shock. Like.
Like, I would probably jump back.
I would probably move my hands as well.
You might think, oh, what's happening?
I better put my hands up to defend myself.
And then you would have, like,
And you would of course, be experiencing fear.
You would be afraid of whatever's happening.
You would be ready to run away because you're
not sure what's happening and you are afraid.
So a smirk is a kind of half smile.
A smirk is not always good thing.
Someone might smirk if you do something wrong.
Like, let's say I was a mean person and I
was in an English class and someone else was speaking
English and they were making lots of mistakes.
I might smirk and I might think, huh, I.
Like, I'm way better than them.
Um, so it's not always a nice thing.
It's a little bit of arrogance, like,
feeling like you're better than someone else.
Um, it can be more passive as well.
Like, if someone tells a joke and it's not really that
funny, you might be like, you might smirk a little bit.
So in that sense, it's more of a positive thing.
But to smirk means to, you know,
just kind of smile a little bit.
Sometimes just with one corner of your mouth.
Like this person here is doing to smirk.
So he has a smirk on his face and he is smirking.
So a sneer is interesting because it.
It signals aggression a little bit.
Like, it's like, it's like you're saying, really? Hmm.
Yeah.
I'm not very good at making a sneer, but in
this case, I think maybe this person was just insulted
and they're about to give an insult back.
Like, if someone said to me, bob, you're. You're.
And then, like, you're starting to
So a sneer is not a positive facial expression.
It is definitely communicating a negative emotion.
Tiny bit of anger, tiny bit of annoyance,
and maybe a little bit of aggression.
Like, if you see two boxers meet before a boxing
match and they shake hands, and then they might be
like, they might say a few things, and then they
might sneer at each other a little bit just to
let the other person know that they're ready and willing
I know the last time I winced was because a bee
was flying at my head and then it didn't turn.
Also, I saw something out of the corner of
my eye, and I was like, I kind of
closed my eyes a bit and turned away.
If you go see a movie and there's a really
violent scene, um, and you might just wince because you
kind of don't want to look at it.
Let's say two of your friends started fighting.
Like, actually punching each other would hope
you tried to break up the fight.
But you might wince because you might be like.
When you see violence, sometimes you.
So to wince, to close your eyes and kind of.
You can see how there's, like, a speed to it.
Bees trying to fly into my face.
Not a very nice thing to stare.
When you stare at someone, you look at them intently.
And then you often don't blink very much either.
I mean, you do blink, but this, to
me, is a perfect example of a stare.
I'm trying to do it right now.
I'm trying to look intently at the lens.
It can be a little bit strange.
Like, if you're in a public place and someone
you don't know stares at you, you kind of
feel like, oh, why are they staring at me?
I did have this at the train station a
few months ago where someone was staring at me.
And then eventually they came up and
asked if I was bob The Canadian.
But to stare at someone means to look at someone
and to hardly blink and to not look away either.
Because now there's a number of reasons for a stare.
because you think they're attractive.
But you might stare at someone
because you think they're attractive.
I might stare at a student so they behave.
If a student is talking in class when
they're not supposed to, I might look at
them instead of saying, hey, Johnny, stop talking.
I might try to catch their eye and I give them a look.
But it's kind of a stare, trying
to communicate that they should behave.
So there's a number of reasons to stare.
An eye roll or to roll your eyes.
That's just what we would say.
Silly or corny or it doesn't make sense.
You might be like, you're basically saying
you don't think that was funny.
Like, you roll your eyes because either you
don't agree with them, you think what they
said was silly, or you can't believe it.
Like, maybe they say, oh, my mom got in
a car accident for the fourth time this week.
You might be like, are you serious? Like, you're.
You're kind of like, yeah, you're
not excited about the situation.
If you say, this homework is due tomorrow.
You might see a few students go where they just
roll their eyes, expressing dissatisfaction at what you said.
So I think we've done wink before.
I can kind of wink with the other eye.
Um, you can wink at someone for a number of reasons.
You know, if you see someone who you think
is attractive, you might wink at them, but it
is considered a little forward and a little inappropriate.
If you see someone or meet someone who you are
compatible with, who you might have a romantic interest in,
I highly recommend that you just have a conversation.
university, there was someone I liked.
If I was like, hi, that's just weird. Don't.
But in movies, you might see people do that.
You might give a wink if something's funny.
Like, if someone says to me, I'm
trying to think of an example.
Oh, if I brought donuts to work and one of
my colleagues was like, hey, thanks for the donuts.
Like, it kind of communicates, hey,
I did something nice for you and you thanked me.
So it's kind of like, you're welcome.
I'm not sure why he's doing the.
I guess I pointed too, didn't I?
You could probably tell puppy dog eyes.
So this is obviously a puppy, a small dog.
And we have something called puppy dog eyes.
This is a facial expression that young
children will often use in order to
get their parents to agree to something.
So if my kids were much younger, and if
they said, can I have some ice cream?
And I said no, they might say like, please.
And they might try to make p. I can't do it. I'm old.
You'll probably have seen this in movies or in cartoons
or with children that you know in your life.
Either your own kids or nephews
and nieces or even younger siblings.
When children really want something, sometimes
So this is an interesting one.
Often when I make a video when it's really sunny outside,
if I don't have my sunglasses, I need to squint.
Here, I can mimic it for a sec. Let's do this.
then it's going to be really bright.
So then I have to squint until.
Because I can't, um, it's too bright for me to see.
Not sure where he is, but he's squinting a
little bit with one eye, maybe with both eyes.
Sometimes you need to squint when
A good example would be sometimes at the movie
theater when the movie's done, they turn the lights
on full brightness at the end of the movie.
And then your eyes are used to the dark,
and then you're like, oh, it's really bright.
Like, and then you squint a little bit.
So to squint means to close your
eyes slightly because it is too bright.
So this is very similar to stare.
In fact, you can see that they rhyme.
But when you glare at someone, it
means you don't like what they're doing.
In fact, the example I gave of staring
at a student so they stopped talking, um,
I would probably glare at the student.
Let's say all the students in my school were in
the gym and we had a speaker up front talking.
Instead of going over to tell them to
stop talking, I might glare at them.
I might be like, I might just stare
intently at them so that they stop talking.
they can see that I'm glaring. This.
This lady is definitely glaring.
It's just more intense than staring.
So when you stare at someone, when you glare at
someone, you might open your eyes a little bit more
and look at them very, very intently to beam.
You're going to be smiling, but it's
like your whole face is smiling.
I tried to find a picture of people beaming.
I feel like these people are beaming with joy.
We often say that people beam with joy.
Um, it's where, like the day when you
have a baby, you're usually beaming for joy.
Like, even if you weren't smiling, people would be
able to tell from your eyes and everything about
you that you are just super happy.
And then I'm going to try being.
I'm o.
I don't even know what that looked like, but
you're just so happy that people, like, within a
split second of looking at you, they can see
that you are full of joy for some reason.
And having a child would be a good example.
If someone at work has a baby the next
day when they come to work, they're usually beaming.
They're super happy because they had a baby to pout.
So kids often pout when they don't get what they want.
It's to express that you are not happy.
to my mom, can I have a candy?
And my mom said, no, I might pout.
You stick out your bottom lip,
Um, I used to pout when I was a kid.
Adults sometimes pout as well.
It doesn't look quite as strong as a child.
Like, maybe, but definitely kids sometimes pout
when they don't get what they want.
So a pouting child, it's not always A
good way to get what you want.
Sometimes your parents just don't care.
But sometimes kids will pout to raise your eyebrows.
We sometimes raise our eyebrows when we're surprised.
Like, you can see my eyebrows are going up.
We sometimes raise our eyebrows when we're like,
we kind of don't agree with someone.
Like, if someone said, messi's the best football player
in the world, I might be like, really?
Like, I might raise my eyebrows and then
I might start to disagree with them.
Uh, in my short lesson on my other channel,
I did the phrase I beg to differ.
This would be a facial expression you would give.
If someone said, baseball is better than football,
I might be like, I beg to differ.
I might raise my eyebrows, showing
Then I might say, I beg to differ.
I think baseball is better than football. I don't.
I don't actually have a choice. I mean, I don't have a
preference, but you could use that. It.
It's equivalent to the English phrase oh, really?
Meaning that you kind of disagree with the person.
So this is the best dirty look I could find.
You give someone a dirty look when
you don't like what they're doing.
Moms and grandmas are good at giving dir looks.
Parents are good at giving dirty looks.
It means you don't like what the child is doing.
So my dirty look would be like.
It's similar to the glare that I would use.
But a dirty look basically means I don't like
what you're doing and you should stop doing that.
Um, you might do this in public. Although we. It's.
So you wouldn't really do this
Um, but certainly within a family, um, if
your brother tells an inappropriate joke at the
supper table, you might give him a dirty
look because you're like, don't upset. Um.
A good example would be, let's say a girl
brings a boyfriend home for the first time to
meet her parents, and then he says something that
she knows the parents won't like.
She might, like, hit him with her
elbow and give him a dirty look.
So it basically is a way to tell people you don't
like what they're doing and they should stop doing it.
I see this sometimes at school.
Sometimes students are confused.
A confused look is kind of like, like, it
can be like, it looks a little bit like
sadness mixed with just not knowing what's going on.
This person definitely looks confused.
Like when I look at the screen that
shows all the trains that go to Toronto
and when they leave, I look like this. I'm like.
And then some people looking at
the train schedule are like this. They're just thinking.
They're like, I do this sometimes in my videos.
People have commented where I'm like.
My finger there. Not my little.
This is your little finger. My pointer finger.
Do you know the names of the fingers?
I don't know if I know them all.
Thumb, pointer finger, middle finger,
ring finger, little finger, pinky.
Sometimes you're like, hmm, I don't know about that.
Hmm.