i want to learn asl at home

May 1, 2008 9:22 PM

help me learn sign language (asl) in the comfort of my own home

my boyfriend is fairly-well deaf, and although he's very good at lip-reading and understanding what i'm saying, i feel that we'd talk faster (with less repeating) if we used sign language -- almost as a supplement. and maybe later on in life, we'd come to rely on the signing more. we've both taken college-level ASL classes many years ago, but neither of us has ever hung out in deaf circles, so that knowledge sort of .. evaporated. we found the classes fairly mediocre and often embarrassing, and have no interest in going back and trying that approach again. and frankly, we're not the most social people in the world, so crashing a "deaf coffee night" at the local starbucks is (unfortunately) out of the question.

are there any good online courses or dvds, or other types of learning tools which we can use at home, which will bring us back up to speed and help us get better with our signing? most of the dvd's i've found have been the same kind of old-fashioned, corny videos where they have very artificial conversations. online mostly all i've found have been "video dictionaries", which are great, but not what we need for learning how to have a conversation. so far, the best sites i've found have been deaf video blogs, since it's really people signing at normal speed, using "slang" and so forth. but they're probably not the best learning tools.

posted by phoeniciansailor to education (10 comments total)

i know you said you want to learn at home... but classes are really the best way to learn ASL.

that said, a lot of classes are taught by people with a very cursory (or just plain wrong) understanding or ASL. you need a Deaf teacher. that is capital-D-Deaf (culturally deaf) not little-d-deaf (a medical diagnoses/condition).

i *highly* recommend taking classes over the summer if you can find good ones (i.e. taught by a Deaf teacher). you can do two classes over the summer, build a base of knowledge, then the online resources you have will be able to help you have a conversation. as it is now, i imagine you are learning a lot of words, which is great, but without the structure to put them together, modify them properly, rhyme with them, use them creatively, etc. you will never know "ASL."

the books from Dawn Sign Press (the Signing Naturally Series are pretty much standard for ASL classes. the videos are fairly old, but they do the job, and like any language, you need to learn structure before (or at the same time) you are learning the slang or you just have word soup. if you must learn at home, work through the old video and get the first level workbook and video should to start.

also, practice finger sign when you are bored. if you run, finger sign all the signs you go past. the practice helps a lot.

good luck!
posted by laminarial at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2008

oh. also practice facial expressions. they are a huge part of what you communicate with ASL and at first, many hearing people feel really stupid when they sign, because you involve your face far more than when speaking. practice so it will feel and look natural.
posted by laminarial at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2008

iaminarial is absolutely right - I'd also suggest that finding an independent living center or Deaf community center would be a good way to go about this. If you want help finding one near you, MeMail me.

Also, the DVDs are corny, but from them, you learn vocabulary and you learn grammar. Any language-learning system, whether a class or a book or a video, is going to have to be corny in parts; you need that sort of scripted structure when you're just starting out. In your case, the grammar may not be a high priority; you may be perfectly happy signing PSE. It's still a good idea to get some exposure to ASL syntax and structure, though, as that'll let you choose just how English or how ASL you want to be. PSE is also reasonably conducive to switching between sign and speech, which may be useful for you.

Finally, check out ASL University. It's still not as good as a class - interacting with other people is critical when learning a language - but it's way better than an online textbook has any right to be. And it's free. Paired up with ASLPro (a video dictionary), it's a decent way to go.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Where are you located phoeniciansailor?
posted by iamkimiam at 10:43 PM on May 1, 2008

How about this?
posted by slavlin at 1:40 AM on May 2, 2008

Vital. The problem with learning sign vocab at home is that it's difficult to impossible to make the dictionary go the other way. If you want to use an english word, you can probably find the equivalent in a text or online. If you watch a video and see a sign that you don't know, you're SOL unless you have someone that you can mimic it to and ask.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 5:29 AM on May 2, 2008

I learned ASL vocabulary of a little kid from watching "Signing Time" with my daughter. They have a lot more videos now. I need to stress that this is not ASL, it is ASL vocabulary. In our house we sign in Pidgin Signed English, but I had a conversation with two severely HoH men (both signed and had hearing aids) last week and we were talking/signing about two wheel vs four wheel drive trucks. They asked me where I learned and my reply in gloss was "TV Show Signing Time. Sign kid same."

The point is that is the show got me pretty far. Many libraries carry it, many are open to carrying it, and there are a lot of PBS stations that are showing it. The web site also has a forum about with a "how do sign" subsection that is routinely patrolled by native signers and interpreters.
posted by plinth at 7:47 AM on May 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

we're in austin, texas, iamkimiam.

btw, both of the instructors that i and my partner had were deaf-with-a-capital-d. i agree that the cultural insights were critical, especially when we've had to sign to someone other than each other. my class was at a local community college, so my impression was the the teacher was a good instructor, but saddled by a -- uh, less than gifted class. 3 semesters of that and i'd had enough. i figured at that point i was on my own to use it or lose it (and i mostly lost it :)

the pidgeon-sign suggestion is a good one, and we've thought about it, using the signing vocabulary to mimic english sentences word-for-word. if all else fails, that may be what we'll do. we would, after all, nearly always be signing just to each other.

or we may go back to looking for a friendly deaf person who we can bribe/con into taking to dinner once a week, so we can talk and pick things up in a more natural, less goofy environment. :)

thanks all for the good advice. i'm still browsing through the links you've sent.
posted by phoeniciansailor at 1:10 PM on May 2, 2008

Since your boyfriend already knows English and has a good grasp of lip-reading, have you looked in to cued speech? It uses a set of handshapes to signal the difference between sounds that are hard to discern visually, like p and b. Much faster to learn than ASL.
posted by supramarginal at 1:30 PM on May 2, 2008

the pidgeon-sign suggestion is a good one, and we've thought about it, using the signing vocabulary to mimic english sentences word-for-word. if all else fails, that may be what we'll do. we would, after all, nearly always be signing just to each other.

Just some PSE-clarification: I currently sign very PSE-flavored ASL, with as many ASL features as I can handle (I've been signing for about two years, though people often are surprised to hear that). Many Deaf people - culturally Deaf people! - sign PSE, either all the time or with people whose ASL isn't great; and almost all Deaf people will understand you just fine. If your experience is like mine, you'll end up using more and more ASL features as you pick them up, just because they make the language much more powerful; but that of course depends on how much exposure you get to ASL.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 4:10 PM on May 2, 2008