Weird question about Fingerspelling Dexterity

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SimplyMints

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I consider myself fluent in SEE because I have been encouraged to learn it for the purpose of communicating with my family. More boring details available in various other threads across AD. Over the past couple of months, I've been endeavouring to learn ASL. In an effort to attempt to aid myself in the transition, I've taught myself to sign "I" as the ASL "me" sign since it was so distinctively SEE in nature.

Unfortunately, that seems to have had an unfortunate side effect. It has caused my dominant pinkie to become shy because it thinks it's doing something wrong by sticking itself up. In effect, when I'm fingerspelling or signing, and I come across a dominant I hand, I pause for a few seconds while I sit there with an S and a ducked quivering pinkie before it finally pops up.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to convert to ASL from SEE, though I wonder if I'm the first to convert to ASL from "proper" unaltered SEE. You see, I haven't noticed anybody else having this particular problem, but thought I'd ask just in case there is a simple solution :)
 
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For fingerspelling practice (to increase smoothness, flow, and keeping my fingers relaxed) I have been known to pick up the newspaper, a book or anything with text and fingerspell along with the words as I read ... I don't get "hung up" on mistakes, I just focus on fluidity.

Not sure if that might help you, but it's worth a try ? I find that the more I fingerspell like I stated above, the more relaxed I am when I'm actually fingerspelling in a conversation setting ... it becomes muscle memory. Also using a book or newspaper etc will allow you to spell out a wide range of commonly used words, which will help your fingers remember when it comes time to "really use it".

A perfect example of this is for me the word "battery" which I always fingerspell instead of sign. Over time the word "battery" has become so ingrained in the muscle memory of my fingers and hand that it's almost become a Sign in it's own right - I don't think about how it's spelled when I'm spelling it - I rely completely on the fact that my muscles "know how to spell it". I guess it's a bit like "touch-typing" - your fingers just know what to do !


Not sure if that makes sense, but as I said , perhaps it's worth at try ??

HTH
 
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Also, how about fingerspelling in the syllables of the words? I think that would help with not only fluidity but also your speed. Fingerspelling according to the syllables of, for example, the word, "California"...cali for nia vs concentrating on each individual letter.....
 
I grew up on MMS and SEE. So, I have no problem with the 'i' signs. ;)
 
I guess in my edit, I forgot to mention that I'd been fingerspelling for 12 years, and had gotten quite good at it before I decided to teach myself to change how I sign the word "I" to the more proper ASL word "me" .. but perhaps some additional practice will help. The thing is, if I sit here at my computer and I compose a sentence comprised only of words that don't have an I or J in them, I can fingerspell that sentence fluidly without any difficulty at all. The only problem arises when my pinkie is expected to rise on its own, and suddenly, that stops the train.

By the way, I notice this is more of a problem in a cold room, so keeping the thermostat up minimises this mistake.

However, I think I will go ahead and try your method in order to teach my pinkie that it's still okay to rise as long as it's not trying to sign the word "I" :)

PS: I too fingerspell like how you described. I don't think about how to spell what I'm spelling. I just tell my hand to do it and it does .. unless there's an I or J in it. It's like when I'm typing. I don't think where the letters are. I just think what I wanna say, and away my fingers go .. unless I try to spell naive with a double-dotten i or pina with a ~ on the n or jalamino or cafe with a thing on the e or something with letters that aren't obvious on the keyboard or something I don't know how to spell. Yeah, anyway, you get the idea.

Hmmm, I wish I could fingerspell to my computer instead of typing, and that way I could get in that practice, lol!
 
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Tousi said:
Also, how about fingerspelling in the syllables of the words? I think that would help with not only fluidity but also your speed. Fingerspelling according to the syllables of, for example, the word, "California"...cali for nia vs concentrating on each individual letter.....
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I was going to suggest the same thing. This is what my sign language instructor suggested I do and it helped me increase my overall speed and fluidity. Instead of thinking about the entire word as a whole, I break it down into pieces and visualize how each piece is fingerspelled.
 
Hear Again said:
I was going to suggest the same thing. This is what my sign language instructor suggested I do and it helped me increase my overall speed and fluidity. Instead of thinking about the entire word as a whole, I break it down into pieces and visualize how each piece is fingerspelled.
Click to expand...

And now they call you Smoky Fingers, right? :lol:
 
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't have any problem reading fingerspelling. I can read it at very fast speeds since I've been using it for 12 years. I mentioned that if I were to compose a sentence regardless of its length that contained no I's or J's, I would be able to fingerspell it flawlessly and rapidly to my satisfaction. It's only those words which contain I's or J's that give me the trouble because I pause whenever it comes time for my pinkie to stand alone.

The syllabic fingerspelling idea sounds like I could adapt it to my needs by making up ways of spingerspelling syllables containing I's or J's so that they are combined with the previous or next letters so that the pinkie is never alone, so when I fingerspell at full speed, nobody will even notice.

Another idea of yours I think could be adapted for me is the one where you suggested fingerspelling individual words as a practice technique. Perhaps if I compiled a list of words containing I's and J's, I could practice that list, starting with the fewest number of such letters to the more difficult words for me, such as "injustice" or "Mississippi" or "individualisation."

Note that my difficulty is because of my pinkie not wanting to rise because I told it that rising was wrong when signing the word "I" in order to convert to the ASL "me" alternative.

These beginning teaching methods you suggested will not go unused, however, since my parents still need considerable practice with fingerspelling and comprehension of it. I wondered how I'd ever get them up to speed. They're in their 60s and they're just now trying to learn to sign. Oh, it makes me feel so guilty.
 
SimplyMints -

Just to clarify - I've been fingerspelling for ... oh heck more than 15 years now ... but I still find the technique of fingerspelling as I'm reading is still beneficial - I often come across words that would be spelled rather than signed (technical, or theological terms in my case) and spelling along side reading means that when I need to use the word in "real life" my fingers already have a bit of memory as to the spelling (which is often complicated due to being latin or greek based)

"practicing" fingerpelling isn't just for "newbies" - I think of fingerspelling much like reading ... it's something I do everyday to keep my skills sharp ... if you read lots, you naturally become more comfortable not only with reading in general, but also with the text/topic you are reading. It's exactly the same with fingerspelling ... if you find you're struggling with a letter combination, you have to "drill" the letter combination, but you also need to just work through text in general. I would suggest using pre-written texts instead of things that you'd write yourself - because "external texts" are words and phrases that you won't have subconsciously memorized.

HTH
 
:hmm:

I don't doubt any of the fingerspelling practicing techniques here. It just doesn't seem like anybody is taking into consideration the fact that I had no problems with my fingerspelling until I started teaching myself to sign "me" in place of the SEE word "I."

Maybe I just haven't given it enough time, and it'll go away on its own.

Me's afraid me can't just teach meself to think the word "me" instead because me still have to type in English, and people would think me's goofy. Not that people don't already think me's goofy :giggle:
 
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Tousi said:
And now they call you Smoky Fingers, right? :lol:
Click to expand...

Well...I don't know about *that*. :giggle: If truth be told, I've met alot of d/Deaf and deafblind people who can fingerspell *much* faster than I can. They put my skills to shame. :Oops:
 
Put aside all spelling and just practice signing I and J repeatedly as if they were an important new skill.
 
Bottesini said:
Put aside all spelling and just practice signing I and J repeatedly as if they were an important new skill.
Click to expand...

*begins moving pinkie up and down, up and down, up and down*

Wow, maybe I should try this exercise with an A hand instead of an S hand...

*changes hand shape and resumes exercising pinkie*

Aha! That's it! Going from F to I! That's my problem!

*begins exercising repeated FIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFIFI*

Mastered! Testing general fingerspelling...

*testing in progress*

Okay, I think I'll give my pinkie that exercise routine so it can get its confidence up. This is truly a rehabilitation issue between my pinkie and the brain.
 
Oracle Bottesini answers all!

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