How do you respond when someone sneezes?

author: geo.facts_/instagram, added on: 2025-03-30

geo.facts_:

This might me one of the most specific posts I’ve ever made in my life, but how do you respond when someone sneezes?

This is practiced worldwide, every time someone sneezes you feel the need to say “bless you”, it’s kinda involuntary! In my country, if someone sneezes we almost always say “Saúde” 🇧🇷, which literally translated to “Health”.

Therefore I was wondering how would people respond in other countries and I discovered some really interesting facts. Let’s take a look into Europe: we can divide it into 6 different groups!

For example, in Norway 🇳🇴, Sweden 🇸🇪 and Denmark 🇩🇰 you would respond “prosit” - a Latin word which means “May it be good (for you)”.

While England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, Ireland 🇮🇪 and Iceland 🇮🇸 would respond something to do with religion. Respectively, “(may god) bless you”, “god with us” and “god help you”.

Most countries respond something to do with health: sometimes literally the word health and other times something to do with it, for example in Finland 🇫🇮 you would say “Terveydeksi” which literally translates to “for (your) health”.

Turkey 🇹🇷 and Malta 🇲🇹 would respond something to do with life: respectively “live long” and “long live”; While France 🇫🇷 would say something to do with wishes: “to your wishes”.

Spain 🇪🇸 , Portugal 🇵🇹 and Austria 🇦🇹 have a different color because they have two very used ways of saying “bless you”. In Spain it’s common to say “Jésus” or “Salud” (Jesus and health), in Portugal it’s common to say “Santinho” or “Saúde” (Little Saint and Saúde) and finally in Austria it’s common to say “Gesundheit” and “helf gott” (health and may god help you)!

Collection: european-words - Tags: europe, words, sneeze - Source: instagram.com