learning to sign

typeingtornado19 said:
i agree totally. but geez this is my 3rd year of ASL, if i dont get it by now, it means i cant see it. This is like the only time i use that as an excuse.
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i understand. i spent years learning pse, see and asl and yet i still had difficulty learning facial expressions. i've given up on it because when i try to make sure i'm making the correct facial expression, my signing suffers as a result.
 
dreama said:
Have you thought of asking instructor if you could feel what the facial expressions looked like? Maybe that would help?
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i've tried this, but it doesn't work because there aren't enough tactile clues on one's face to be able to identify a given facial expression.
 
I generally have more trouble putting the right sign with the complex words I usually use. My brain is a database of random multi-syllabic words that have odd meanings, my favorite currently being defenestrate, which means to throw out of a window, generally while it is open. But with these words being put into my sentences before they are pronounced or signed, when signing, I run into the block of "how in the world am I supposed to sign this?"

I am not a genius, and my block is the obvious evidence of that. I need to beef up my count of signs and definitions.
 
sculleywr said:
I generally have more trouble putting the right sign with the complex words I usually use. My brain is a database of random multi-syllabic words that have odd meanings, my favorite currently being defenestrate, which means to throw out of a window, generally while it is open. But with these words being put into my sentences before they are pronounced or signed, when signing, I run into the block of "how in the world am I supposed to sign this?"

I am not a genius, and my block is the obvious evidence of that. I need to beef up my count of signs and definitions.
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most advanced vocabulary words such as the one you mentioned do not have equivalent signs for them and therefore must be fingerspelled.

i would suggest that you try to use simpler vocabulary. doing so will make it considerably easier for you to express yourself in sign.

after all, sometimes the most basic words of all are the ones that convey an idea best.
 
My biggest struggle when I first learned ASL in '95 was fingerspelling both expressively and receptive. To this day, I am not proficient at fingerspelling myself but can understand it a lot better now.
 
shel90 said:
My biggest struggle when I first learned ASL in '95 was fingerspelling both expressively and receptive. To this day, I am not proficient at fingerspelling myself but can understand it a lot better now.
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ohh i know, i can fingerspell, receptive is harder, but i cannot fingerspell in front of the asl department chair... i dont know why, i just cant.
 
Many ASL students struggle with signing "few" or "several" (same sign, movement and facial expression show the difference).

While there are not a lot of specific "words" that are hard for ASL students to learn there are a lot of common issues that make people show their "hearing" accents.

Cross dominance, hesitation, extralinguistic body movement, PRODUCTION ERRORS, etc, etc.

Just gotta keep working at it, and GET INVOLVED IN THE DEAF COMMUNITY, eventually, most stuff works itself out :)
 
ohh yes, being in the deaf community really helps. i am just talking about specific signs or facial expressions people struggle with.
 
Don't worry too much; the reception aspect is almost always the last thing to fall into place.
 
The "slang" signs threw me off at first. When I was learning in 89. Some of my deaf friends threw in some slangs. I'm like huh? What does that mean. Eventually I learned but just to sign in ASL totally was hard due to I was raised orally "English"
 
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