Telephone

Word-of-mouth relay — whisper a sentence around a circle; laugh at the mangled version the last player announces.

🌤both

What is Telephone?

Telephone (Chinese Whispers in Commonwealth English, Broken Telephone elsewhere) is a classic children's party game. Players sit in a circle; the first player whispers a sentence into the neighbour's ear, and each successive player whispers what they heard. The final player says the sentence aloud — usually hilariously mangled from the original. Also used as a serious teaching demo of how information distorts as it passes through many transmitters.

Quick facts

Category

Party Games

Type

Team sport

Players

4–20

Where played

both

Country of origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Estimated origin

Traditional children's word-of-mouth relay game — folk origins

Olympic

No

Popularity

global

Sources & provenance

Last verified 2026-08-24.verified