Best way to learn ASL? Hints, Ideas, Opinions?

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NFGTragedy

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I am hearing and I have a deaf girlfriend who is just perfect for me. Only thing I feel that needs to be worked on is the ability to easily BS in person... if you know what I mean? More like just talking to talk... not talking to ask questions or what not. Not sure if I clearly stated what I mean but I hope you all catch my drift... ANYWAYS, since it doesn't seem very easy to teach her to understand me completely with voice, I have decided to step up and set out to learn ASL to help solve this problem. My main problem being is that she rarely signs to me since I 99.9% of the time understand her with her voice alone... So teaching myself ASL is really my own little project. I am just curious what you all think as the best way to learn ASL. What books to get, methods to use, or whatever may help me.

Does signing to music, stories, articles, or poetry seem to work for anyone?

I am looking for how any of you late ASL users have learned the language and what you thought was the best thing you did to learn besides ofcourse being directly exposed to it.

I am trying to spend some time this summer while I have alot of free time on learning more ASL since I have learned the whole fingerspelling and basic convo stuff during my school year at RIT. I really just want to get fluent enough to talk to her without having a problem searching for words or slowing down the convo with fingerspelling more then should be.

Any hints, ideas, and/or opinions on this?
 
Learn asl

I think one of the best ways to learn asl is to find someone who is learning or knows how to sign and can speak hear or readlips to communicate with you. I am learning to sign but have noone to learn it with. So if you want feel free to contact me at Nirvana11b@yahoo.com
 
...ability to easily BS in person... if you know what I mean?
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By BS I think you mean "blind sign" like your girlfriend has her hand curved in front of her with palm facing down and you put your hand below her palm of her hand to "blind sign" to her. Am I correct?

I'm just trying to make more sense from your post about "BS."
 
GraysonPeddie said:
By BS I think you mean "blind sign" like your girlfriend has her hand curved in front of her with palm facing down and you put your hand below her palm of her hand to "blind sign" to her. Am I correct?

I'm just trying to make more sense from your post about "BS."
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By BS i meant more like bullshit... :doh: I feel we can talk on the sk all day.. but in person... sometimes we hold back conversations just to avoid some small understanding problems?
 
GraysonPeddie said:
I'm just trying to make more sense from your post about "BS."
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Believe he meant "bullsh*t." As in just chat for fun.

I'm confused...are you trying to surprise your girlfriend with knowledge of ASL? If not, why haven't you asked her to teach you? There's no better way to learn than from a native user.

Signing to stories and music etc. would be transliterating from English into signed English and that isn't what you want. If for some reason it isn't feasible for your girlfriend to teach you sign, look for a class at your local community college or the book/video series "Signing Naturally" is a very good text.
 
Its best to learn sign language by practice and its much easier to practice with another signer to speed thing up a bit. You can take asl class in local community college, tutor (not the private lessons :whistle: ). You can tell your girlfriend that you want to learn sign language so its easier for both of you to communicate about everything--not just shoot the wad so to speak. If she is not eager ( she may have taught a few hearies before and find it boring) then try find someone to practice with.

I have tried take asl class years ago and had no one to practice with so I lost interest at the time. Then I went away to college that have deaf program so I picked it up in no time there. Its nothing like learning sign language from the native signers. Another idea is to practice with deafies at a social event--this will be harder and many deafies dont have patience but there is always one or two who are willing :D
 
Interpretrator said:
Believe he meant "bullsh*t." As in just chat for fun.

I'm confused...are you trying to surprise your girlfriend with knowledge of ASL? If not, why haven't you asked her to teach you? There's no better way to learn than from a native user.

Signing to stories and music etc. would be transliterating from English into signed English and that isn't what you want. If for some reason it isn't feasible for your girlfriend to teach you sign, look for a class at your local community college or the book/video series "Signing Naturally" is a very good text.
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I have asked her to teach me... but right now its summer break from college and she is living at home in another state... sooo I just want to spend the next 2 months keeping asl fresh and adding slowly to my knowledge of it. I have asked her a few times when we were at school but with the load of college work, work, and whatnot it sorta tends to get pushed off a bit more. I have asked her to sign when she talks from now on so we'll see if that helps my comprehension of asl from a reading pov. I have a few books and dictionaries on asl... but I can't learn by just browsing words all day. I'm trying to find a way to make it interesting yet progressive.
 
try get some videotapes of ASL which is better than books becuz its more 3D dimesions (sp?) than books with 2D which is a little hard to "read". Try call the college who have ASL classes or deaf community center--if not have one in your area then try new york city which should have one there and ask for info on asl videotapes. Good luck!! :hyper:
 
As for taking a class.... I have tried getting into the course at my school every semester so far... everytime it is full... I find it absurd that a school with such a deaf community such as RIT only has seats for 40 kids out of the 16,000 or so that are granted a seat in this course. It appears that 5th year students fill the class before I am able to get myself a seat so I am looking towards alternatives. I have experienced plenty of deaf one on ones... I learned enough just to get by... but I feel I never really accel much past that. Most of my deaf friends understand me pefectly fine even if I sign just a few words out of my thoughts... so I guess i'm never really pushed to sign every word. Maybe its partly my fault... but i'm trying to fix that.
 
Some more... Before departing for summer time I found a very interesting section of my library at college ( RIT )... which consisted of hundreds of deaf culture and how to learn asl books. Ofcourse though these do not help me as I am over 8 hours drive from my school and cannot borrow these books for such a long term such as over the summer. I DO plan on getting these upon return in september.
 
ButterflyGirl said:
Try this http://www.aslpro.com/
Hope this helps.

By the way, it is great that you are interested to learn ASL :thumb:
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That site it pretty good I must say, I've been to it a few times... but I am looking for a good method of learning too... I can't find a good way to retain what I learn and I want to know how to practice it and retain the most. I'm just curious what everyone else did to learn it... What works, what doesn't...kinda thing :)

I have had a desire to learn ever since I saw the deaf community on my campus... :) and even more so after me and my girlfriend got together.
 
NFGTragedy said:
I have asked her to teach me... but right now its summer break from college and she is living at home in another state...
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Ah I see.

Well, I still think you should try to move away from the idea of books and dictionaries that you keep mention, and towards a more interactive approach. If you can't get into a class at your school, try a different school! Try a community college, adult education center, or extension program. Or a book/video combo like I suggested. (There's another one people like aside from Signing Naturally but I can't remember the name.) Or find out what kind of events are going on in the deaf community at your school and start attending. ASL as you know is a visual-spatial language and learning it from a book is about the worst possible way.
 
Use your receptively eyes and no voice involved while you are learning ASL. Thats a big challenge for you to get yourself motivated to learn ASL. It s not going to happens overnight.. It s all depends on your own motivation and have a heart to get serious and learn ASL itself without cheating. LOL You will getting there before you know it.. Dont give it up that easily or disappoint yourself if you are into a wrong person. Find someone else who is willing to do this for you.

Also it s the best thing for anyone who wants to learn and should mingle with deafies in Deaf events. That is a big help. Also you need to have more patience and dont be nervous.. We are not going to bite ya.. LOL

If you have a chance that you can talk with someone from vp that I would be glad to help you to practice ASL without voice. ;)

Then you will become a good ASLer.

Wish you a good luck! ;)

Sweetmind
 
In the book Joy of Signing, it BRIEFLY explains basic ASL grammar usage. (it is a good start though because it's "the least you need to know"). The first thing to work on is the vocabulary. I learned PSE first (ASL signs in an English word order), but I was bilingual first. (I learned Spanish in high school and can use it with near fluency). ASL was my third language, and it helped me be more accepting of the differences in grammar between ASL and English.

Is your girlfriend willing to teach you? I am in a similar situation as you are (I'm hearing with a deaf girlfriend), but I am fluent in ASL now thanks to her. :) Can she teach you? I recommend asking her about it. Can she use her voice and/or lipread? Mine can, but I learned to sign because oral speech isn't her best method of communication (signing is).
 
ive been seeing someone abt 5 mths who is deaf and he doesn't speak much so at first we relied on aim and writing when we were first getting to know each other. He started to teach me to sign and i am learning at a steady pace. I know that at first like u said we relied a lot more on aim...because we didn't want misunderstanding with sign... It got to be a little frusturating...and i made him sign to me more when we were together...the best way to learn is to have practice. The more we sign the better i get...funny cause we work together and i sometimes find myself when talking to my hearing friends signing too...they just laugh....there is asl.pro website that is good too...i use that to practice sometimes..but i think just signing with someone is the best way to learn...
 
NFGTragedy said:
I am hearing and I have a deaf girlfriend who is just perfect for me. Only thing I feel that needs to be worked on is the ability to easily BS in person... if you know what I mean? More like just talking to talk... not talking to ask questions or what not. Not sure if I clearly stated what I mean but I hope you all catch my drift... ANYWAYS, since it doesn't seem very easy to teach her to understand me completely with voice, I have decided to step up and set out to learn ASL to help solve this problem. My main problem being is that she rarely signs to me since I 99.9% of the time understand her with her voice alone... So teaching myself ASL is really my own little project. I am just curious what you all think as the best way to learn ASL. What books to get, methods to use, or whatever may help me.

Does signing to music, stories, articles, or poetry seem to work for anyone?

I am looking for how any of you late ASL users have learned the language and what you thought was the best thing you did to learn besides ofcourse being directly exposed to it.

I am trying to spend some time this summer while I have alot of free time on learning more ASL since I have learned the whole fingerspelling and basic convo stuff during my school year at RIT. I really just want to get fluent enough to talk to her without having a problem searching for words or slowing down the convo with fingerspelling more then should be.

Any hints, ideas, and/or opinions on this?
Click to expand...
I know exactly how you feel. My girlfriend is deaf. She is extremely oral and lip reads very well. I am very fortunate on that fact. I am learning ASL at my local community college and doing the accelerated courses, ya know 16 weeks in 5. Anyhow, it is going good. Several things I am learing is that my instructor likes to use alot of the old signs and uses the regionalsigns most commonly used as well. My girlfriend gre up miles away from her and so I sign she laughs casue the signs may be a bit differnet and when I go to class, I am told it is the wrong sign.... go figure. My girlfriend does not sign to me that much cause she grew up in an all eharing famiy and is used to us hearies. Take my advice, have her teach you. It will be more meaninful and intimate for you. Also, get some formal training in ASL if you are that serious about her. Not enough people know ASL. Trust me, I am in healthcare. LOL Good luck.. there are alot of local Deaf clubs in the communities that you can do and lean from the Deaf culture.
 
BrianASL said:
I know exactly how you feel. My girlfriend is deaf. She is extremely oral and lip reads very well. I am very fortunate on that fact. I am learning ASL at my local community college and doing the accelerated courses, ya know 16 weeks in 5. Anyhow, it is going good. Several things I am learing is that my instructor likes to use alot of the old signs and uses the regionalsigns most commonly used as well. My girlfriend gre up miles away from her and so I sign she laughs casue the signs may be a bit differnet and when I go to class, I am told it is the wrong sign.... go figure. My girlfriend does not sign to me that much cause she grew up in an all eharing famiy and is used to us hearies. Take my advice, have her teach you. It will be more meaninful and intimate for you. Also, get some formal training in ASL if you are that serious about her. Not enough people know ASL. Trust me, I am in healthcare. LOL Good luck.. there are alot of local Deaf clubs in the communities that you can do and lean from the Deaf culture.
Click to expand...

I've been trying to get into the sign class at my school since the first semester... But the school obviously doesn't care about the "mainstreaming" that it has so much pride in. It's obvious to everyone who goes there. I really think that waiting until my 4th year to get into a class that could benefit me best within my first year is just plain retarded on their part. I really do plan bringing this up to our new student president who is deaf (A first for our school). As for now I'll be stuck with some books to pick up some sign words and phrases until the fall when I head back there and need to us sign daily. I've gotten a few new books that seem to be very good so I'm going to try them out for now. I also have gotten into signing through my isight with my girlfriend almost every day now which is improving my reading skills alot more. Thanks for all your support.
 
I am just learning ASL. What works for me is I use every sign that I know and for the ones I don't I finger spell them out. If you make your self use sign as much as you can every day you will start to pick up more and more with out even knowing that you have learned something new.
 
NFGTragedy, I was planning to make a new thread but this thread is similar as mine. Instead of making a new thread, I posted in here. I hope you don't mind.


Quite the captivating thread!

Well, I tried to ask a deaf student in my class in which and how to learn ASL. I even asked him to teach me and I'd pay him handsomely for it but I was rejected harshly. After a few attempts of interacting with him, I slowly started to understand that deaf man was not exactly a warm person to hearing people. He bestowed similar attitudes to other hearing people.

I'm not sure why he carried the attitude to us. I guess I have a lot to learn and I also thought something was wrong with me or my way of approach. I attempted to communicate with him with PnP, papers and pencil.

Which is the best method to learn ASL? ASL classes? ASL books? DVD/VHS? PC softwares?
 
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