Trying to think in ASL grammtical format.

Dixie

Dixie

Farting Snowflakes
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As you know, I grew up and live in an oral/hearing world. All my life I have thought and spoke in proper English grammatical format.

I know that ASL is not in exact English format. It is more like this:

I HAVE CHILDREN 3

AGE YOU?

WHERE LIVE YOU?

I GO STORE FLIRT WITH CALCULATOR PERSON (cashier)

but in doing signs to myself I often find myself really struggling because my brain keeps telling me it is not the 'right' word order.

How does one overcome this mental blockade and learn to think in ASL without ones train of thought getting blurred?

Does anyone still struggle with this at times??
 
When I first started learning sign language, I thought I was learning straight-up ASL, but it was really PSE. It's just a matter of doing it enough. If I'm chatting, I now tend to swing to the ASL side, but if I'm interpreting something challenging, I tend to slip back to PSE. Just remember, OSV! Object, Subject, Verb! And POOF, you're ASL.

:lol: the other day I actually said a sentence out loud in ASL grammar. It was something like, "I'm going to the store thinking about." It really cracked me up.
 
I understand this problem all too well.. I grew up thinking english.. and still do.. so I use PSE all the time.

I think that if you're around deaf people, ASL becomes natural, but if your contact with them is limited, PSE becomes natural. I have no human contact with the deaf.. so I forgot how ASL works. if i'm around deaf people, i tend to revert to ASL, almost like it comes back fast. But for the most part, I sign PSE.
 
yeah, me too..

I am somewhat good at ASL but i rather to PSE because of my story talent. heh :)
 
When I started learning sign 11 years ago, my instructor began by teaching me PSE. We then moved onto ASL which I really struggled with in the beginning. No matter how hard I tried to think in ASL, my brain wanted to transpose everything into English word order. Even though I'm familiar with the grammatical structure of ASL, English is my primary language, so it's easier for me to "think in English" as opposed to ASL. Another difficulty I have with ASL is with its visual concepts. Some visual concepts in ASL cannot be communicated in tactile sign, so my instructor would have to fingerspell a sign I might not recognize (or is difficult to recognize) tactually, substitute one sign/word for another or describe a visual concept to me in PSE.
 
When I first started learning ASL, I had no idea that its grammatical structure was different from English until I reached level II ASL. I was dumbfounded and puzzled to why the rules were different so I asked my brother who had been fluent in ASL since he was 5 years old and he explained to me. I didnt get it at first but as I got more experience in using it and more involved with the Deaf community, I finally understood why. Then it was a matter of developing the "ASL" part of my brain in which my goal was for it to be completely separate from my "English" part of the brain. My brother said "Dont move your lips mouthing English words and think in pics." I worked hard for about 2 years doing that and now it has gotten a lot easier and I am pretty fluent in ASL expressively now. I still struggle to use classifiers but working on it. Maybe try doing that?
 
So I probably need to sit down and just start thinking of things I would say but in ASL format and learning to think in pictures.

So for instance if I said I am going to church I would probably first think of the church building in my head then the next picture is of a stick figure walking to the church, so the end product would be

CHURCH I GO

correct??
 
Sheila said:
Just remember, OSV! Object, Subject, Verb! And POOF, you're ASL.
Click to expand...
Every once and a while somebody says something that switches the light on. Sheila you just did that for me. Thanks!! It's really tough when there are so many different signing methods and so many different opinions regarding which method to use. It's almost as though you have to learn them all and use the right one depending on the situation and audience. Man.. there's got to be an eaiser way.
 
Push English away from your mind and just say, "I am speaking ASL right now, not English."

I thought I would never be able to speak French or Spanish and just automatically put the direct/indirect objects before the verb without stopping and other things like that,

Before I know I was going, "Je te veux y aller!" (I want you to go there!) without batting an eyelash.

You just have to train your mind to think that way.
 
Oh great, I made a thread about this and it is completed ignored!!!
I guess I am so useless, but that is okay.

There are so many complicated in ASL, for instance, the tires rimmed so hard and the smoke came out. How can you say that in 2 sign without any of these words?
 
Ooh, I get it now. Finally I understand clear! u really hit in my head. I have to think of pic, not think of sentence order. No wonder, I tend to get confused all my life for nuthin!
 
OK this is getting picture perfect here.

So when I go to practice my signs I need to think in pictures. Hopefully as I think more in pictures the more smoothly this will come out and hopefully I'll have anifty lil ASL vid to share and sign about boring topics such as Iraq.

Here's my first attempt:
CHOIR I SIGN WITH DOING SINGING THEATRE.

Translated what would that say? I know what Im trying to say, but in that word order in signs what would you get from it??
 
Dixie said:
So I probably need to sit down and just start thinking of things I would say but in ASL format and learning to think in pictures.

So for instance if I said I am going to church I would probably first think of the church building in my head then the next picture is of a stick figure walking to the church, so the end product would be

CHURCH I GO

correct??
Click to expand...

U got it right! It is NOT easy to keep the English from invading your "pics". It still happens to me when I am tired, pissed off, or scared. My signing becomes practically useless..
 
shel90 said:
When I first started learning ASL, I had no idea that its grammatical structure was different from English until I reached level II ASL. I was dumbfounded and puzzled to why the rules were different so I asked my brother who had been fluent in ASL since he was 5 years old and he explained to me. I didnt get it at first but as I got more experience in using it and more involved with the Deaf community, I finally understood why. Then it was a matter of developing the "ASL" part of my brain in which my goal was for it to be completely separate from my "English" part of the brain. My brother said "Dont move your lips mouthing English words and think in pics." I worked hard for about 2 years doing that and now it has gotten a lot easier and I am pretty fluent in ASL expressively now. I still struggle to use classifiers but working on it. Maybe try doing that?
Click to expand...

I agree with you completely. And classifiers are still a problem for me sometimes, although I do have the mouth morphemes down now. When I am signing ASL, I tend to get this little series of pictures running in my head that shows the action, and I just sign what I see in my head. Does that make sense?
 
Yes! As far as the pics go, I will always remember what one teacher told me:

The sentence we were working on was "A man walked down the street, turned left, and entered the bar." If you start signing this one before you think about it, you're sunk! She created the picture for us like this; "You can't have a classifier walking down nothing heading to nothing, so first create the street and bar. Then go ahead and sign your man walking, turning, and entering."

So instead of looking like this:
MAN WALK CL:1 STREET, TURNED-LEFT, POINT-THERE BAR, CL:1-ENTER-BAR ENTER

It looked like this:
STREET-HERE, BAR-HERE, MAN CL:1-WALKED-DOWN, TURNED-LEFT, ENTER

Also, try to picture a scene like a movie. That's the beauty of classifiers. You can be in the car at the stoplight, then you can be hovering with a bird's eye view of your car, then you can be the pedestrian walking in front of the car.

Does this make sense? :eek:
 
ah I get it now - so I was right the first go around.



It is basically first laying out the setting, then who is in that setting then who does what. ah neato.

Now this is getting easier now thats broken down like this.
 
Sheila said~
Just remember, OSV! Object, Subject, Verb! And POOF, you're ASL.
Click to expand...

That is making more sense then the way I was taught.

My teacher/mentor instructs - Time, Topic, Comment, Direct Object

Example:
English: Let's go shopping tomorrow around 5.
ASL: Tomorrow 5 go shop two-of-us

Is my sentence ASL too much?
How can I clean it up better with your OSV?

As far as classifiers go, sometimes easy sometimes hard, I have my favorites though.

Thanks
 
so far my favorite classifier is the one often used for car - the 3 handshape thats moved around like a car as in CAR GARAGE I PARKED IN which is easy to sign - make your little car and your other hand becomes the garage and you park your car in the garage, lol.
 
This topic reminds me of how, in the educational setting, does one, through ASL, lead deaf children to English literacy (and ASL mastery)? But that's another topic; sorry, Dixie, I'll back out now. Lol...
 
ASLGAL said:
Sheila said~


That is making more sense then the way I was taught.

My teacher/mentor instructs - Time, Topic, Comment, Direct Object

Example:
English: Let's go shopping tomorrow around 5.
ASL: Tomorrow 5 go shop two-of-us

Is my sentence ASL too much?
How can I clean it up better with your OSV?

As far as classifiers go, sometimes easy sometimes hard, I have my favorites though.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Wow! Talk about complex! I don't think that's too ASL. If I were signing that sentence, it would be TOMORROW TWO-OF-US SHOPPING TIME-FIVE.
 
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