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A simple lesson dealing with vocabulary from the home.

The chart to write out the 5 elements is downloadable as a PDF.

The video above is captioned for those needing captioning. Be sure to click on the [CC] logo on the video player to see the captions.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 15.

In this lesson I am going to talk about house words. HOUSE.

This is the word HOME. HOME. And there is kind of the distinction in sign language that there is in spoken English. HOUSE would be the place and then HOME would be more the family. That idea. So, HOUSE you draw the roof and the walls. And then HOME. It is the place where you eat and sleep. That is the way you can think of it. You take all of your fingertips together and and you will show like you are eating. And then you put your hand up here by your temple. Eat and sleep. HOUSE. HOUSE and HOME.

DOOR

DOOR – You take and have one hand stationary and the other hand opens and closes. DOOR. You could say, “open the DOOR and close the DOOR.”

WINDOW

WINDOW – The same thing. You have one hand is stationary and the other hand shows the WINDOW sliding open and then closed.

CHAIR

CHAIR – This is your two little legs hanging off the edge of the CHAIR. CHAIR. There are variants of this. You could do SOFA. Or LOVE SEAT for two people. CHAIR.

Now, SIT is the same sign. We will talk more about the distinction between nouns and verbs. But when it is the exact same sign then you can distinguish between nouns and verbs by doing the verb once, SIT. It is more like a single action SIT. And then CHAIR has a little bit of a bounce. However, many times you don’t need to make a distinction because where we might say in English, “sit in the CHAIR.” The truth is if you tell somebody to sit and you are pointing to something, then it doesn’t make any sense to say, “in the CHAIR.” You can just say SIT. Right there. And if there is a CHAIR there, then that is where they SIT. If it is a rock, then that is where they SIT. So you don’t have to make that distinction. Now when you do have a noun and a verb that has the same sign then the verb is a single action and the noun has a little bit of a bounce to it.

SIT and CHAIR

TABLE

TABLE – It is just take like your “I Dream of Genie” hands. TABLE. Drop it down. WINDOW is with the palms towards you. WINDOW. And TABLE is with your palms down.

BED

BED – Take your Bs or your mitten hands and you put them side by side like you are sleeping. BED. BED.

SHOWER

SHOWER – Remember this is SUN. You do a circle and then you do the SUN onto yourself. It can also be used for GRACE. We talked about that. GRACE is towards you and SUN would be more out. SUN.

But this is where it kind of pulses in and out. SHOWER SHOWER

BATHE – Take your A-hands and you are going to bathe. You are going to rub. Either alternating or together. BATHE. Either one of those.

BATHROOM – Two signs for BATHROOM. You can do BATHROOM with RR which is RESTROOM. BATHROOM. Or you shake the letter T. BATHROOM

BATHROOM or BATHROOM. Either one.

LIGHT – This also has a couple of different signs. You take your…your 8 and you are going to flick the middle finger up. And you are going to do it right at your chin. LIGHT. LIGHT.

That is one sign for it. Another is to take and do a light towards yourself. Kind of like SUN has a circle and goes out. LIGHT is above you and the LIGHT comes down. LIGHT. Or LIGHT. Either one.

Alright, so let’s go through those again.

Now, in lesson number 11 I talked about something, the 5 different elements. Something you could do to write down signs is to list the 5 different elements of shape, location, movement, orientation and non-manual elements like the way you move your mouth, head tilt, shoulder shrug and different things. So those are the 5 different elements. I came across a book this last week that has lists of words and then it had a chart on there of the 5 different elements.

Let me show that to you. I picked this up at a college that I was teaching class at last week. And what the teacher has done and taken and given the word list, the vocabulary list along with spaces to write in the 5 elements of each sign. So what I am going to do is I will have a page made up like this. Not with vocabulary words on there, but with a blank space. And then have this so you can download it at LearnSigns.com/15. And you can get this piece of paper that you can then write in your shape, orientation, location, movement and then the non-manual elements. So that chart I will have available for you at LearnSigns.com/15.

This is LearnSigns.com/15. I want to encourage you to keep learning your vocabulary. In the next couple of lessons we will do more vocabulary and I am going to talk about things that are more sign language grammar related. So we will get into more of the usage of sign language. And I think you will enjoy that.

LearnSigns.com/15. Thank you for watching.

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Personal pronouns are the ones that talk about me, you and them. They are handled in a systematic and simple way in sign language. You can still express as much with just a few gestures as you can in English, but you don’t have to worry about the case of the pronoun (whether the right word is ME or I).

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com. Lesson number 14.

I want to talk about pronouns. Pronouns, of course you know, are words that take the place of nouns. Before we can discuss pronouns themselves, we also need to talk about nouns. Or, particularly, names. And, pronouns are going to take the place of nouns and I am talking about people in this. There is not really a pronoun for IT, so we are talking about people here.

So, with sign names, or with a person’s name, you can spell your name. Like my name is DAVID. And I have a sign name which is David. And each person can make up your own sign name. Or the sign name can be give to you by your deaf friends. And typically what will happen is your sign name will have something to do with a physical characteristic you have or using one of your initials. And sometimes a combination of both.

For example, I have a friend Francisco. He has big ears. So his sign name is the letter F just touching his ear. Sometimes you will see somebody who has a mole. And so their sign name might be touching the spot where the mole is. My sign name is David with the D. It is something you just make up on your own. It doesn’t have to be anything special or have any kind of meaning. One fellow I met recently his sign name is Phil with the P right there on the chin. All kinds of ways that you can do sign names.

So a sign name in essence is a pronoun because you can use that sign to mean the person that you are talking about. So you have sign names to take the place of a proper noun, of the person’s name. But then you can also use what we would call a typical pronoun.

So pronouns kind of have a way that they work. A system. And so here is the basic system.

If you just use your pointer finger and point to the other person you are saying YOU. YOU. YOU need to do this…or whatever.

I can point to me, point to myself and it would be ME. Now, if I am talking about a person that is standing here to my side, I can say HIM or HER. And it is obvious who I am talking about because we are all right here. I can see YOU. YOU can see ME and we both can see HIM. So we use our pointer finger, our index finger to indicate who we are talking about.

It is also possible that the person is not there. I can talk about my brother and I can say, my brother. And I am going to put him here. I am going to use this gesture. Or you can do the little person and say my brother and point to him. Now when I talk about him in the story I can just point…HE said this. HE did that. So you can use, even if a person is not physically present, you can use the indicating finger to show who or where the person or thing is.

Then you have the collective, WE, US. You can do that a couple of different ways. The W and you are saying, WE. And essentially what you are doing is pointing to yourself and you are including all the other people around. US with the U. US. Now, you also see it like this, and this is the way I personally do it. I point to myself and then I point to all of you and then back to myself. WE or US.

The same way with ME and I. I talk about myself, I or ME. You will see sometimes it will be done with an I like this and ME like this. I do them both by pointing to myself. They mean the same thing in grammar. Now, not English grammar. I know English grammar says I and ME are different, but in sign language grammar they are essentially the same thing. ME

I can point to myself and to YOU and to US. I can talk about THEM, those people over there. I can talk about YOU plural with my index finger. So your index finger is showing the basic simple pronoun.

Now, if you want to show possessive you use the open palm. You can say MY. MY book. YOUR car. And you are using the open palm to show possession. I can talk about HER. HER dog. And then if I wanted to talk about my brother that is standing there, HIS. HIS family. OK?

So you are using the open palm to show possession. So, how would we do OURS? OURS – Just start here on your side and you are going to include all the people using the open palm and include all the people. OURS

YOURS as in plural. YOURS

THEIRS – Those people over there. It is THEIR classroom.

So the open palm shows possession and the index finger shows basic, indicating who the person is. YOU, ME, HIM (that is standing right here), HIM that’s far away and we’ve set him up in the story. So you can use pronouns so you don’t have to use the person’s name over and over.

Now, if you do know the sign name, then of course you want to make sure all of this is clear. So use the person’s sign name that you are talking about. Use whatever you can. If the person is physically there it is so much easier to point to them or point to YOU. So use—make sure it is clear. That’s the big thing. You need to be clear in your meaning and in your signs. So whatever it is, whether it is using pronouns, sign names, or just basic words, you want to be clear in your signing.

OK? So that is your pronouns. Just a real simple lesson on how to use pronouns. This is LearnSigns.com/14. If you will go to the website, LearnSigns.com, and then put a slash and then just the number of the lesson you are looking for and you will bring the lesson up.

Thank you for watching.

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Join me in my back yard this time to learn some nature signs. My current office/video studio is a corner of my unfinished basement. Last week I started doing some work to build walls so that I don’t freeze to death this winter while trying to make videos for the website. I enjoyed being outside to shoot this video, but I had to hurry before the sun came up and blinded me. Because of hurrying to get ready and shoot the video before the sun came up, I just grabbed a shirt and ran out the door. It wasn’t until we started editing the video before I realized that I was wearing the same shirt as I was in the last lesson.

Rain, snow and rainbows are included in this list of nature words.

Words learned in this lesson:

Project: Using the information you learned in lesson 11, write out the description for the word GRASS in your area. This is a word that changes quite a bit from region to region in the United States. Write your description in the comments below.

This was actually the second take of this video. There were two major problems with the first video. I didn’t have something set right on my audio recorder and the sound was awful. The second problem was the swarm of mosquitoes that attacked my bald head. I did a good job of not swatting at them the whole time I was recording, but by the time the video was done there were several that could be seen feasting on my skull.

The video above is captioned for those needing captioning. Be sure to click on the [CC] logo on the video player to see the captions.

Welcome to LearnSigns.com. Lesson number 13.

My office in the basement of the house is being worked on right now, so I decided to do the video from outside the house. And, it is not too cold yet. Also, I am going to be talking about NATURE. NATURAL things in this video.

NATURE, NATURAL this is also the sign for NORMAL. You take the N, or it is a modified N—really the letter U. And you give it a little wiggle and this is more to say, “Hey, I am about to do something here.” Then you drop it down. Sometimes you will see it from underneath or above it. But just a little movement to show that this hand is about to do something. NATURE

TREE – You have your horizon and then your TREE is on the horizon. It wiggles. You can do several TREES. Give it a movement there. TREES

FLOWER – It’s all your fingertips are together and you are going to touch one side of your nose and you go to the other side. FLOWER

SUN – You draw a circle and then you show the sun shine. Shining down. SUN

MOON – Can be done a couple of different ways. The way I like to do it is what I call the little C. It is the C made with just the thumb and index finger. You put it right here by your eye. MOON. Sometimes you will see it done with the big C. But then, some people use this to mean SUN. So the biggest separation, for distinction purposes, is to do SUN like this. And then MOON with just the index finger and the thumb. MOON. SUN. MOON.

STARS

STAR – It is your Gs and you are going to bump them together as you rub up. STAR

EARTH or WORLD

This is EARTH. You take your thumb and your sensitive finger and you are going to pinch your wrist and you give it a little wiggle. EARTH EARTH

WORLD – Is with the Ws. And you do just like you do YEAR, but you do it with the Ws. WORLD

EARTH and WORLD

DIRT – Take your, like you would do the word money. This is not the real sign for money. But this is what we call a natural sign—the way people do it. Money. Now you do it with both hands with your palms up. DIRT. DIRT. You can take and do that and spread it out on the GROUND and that would be LAND or a piece of PROPERTY. So, DIRT, or EARTH meaning DIRT or SOIL. Then you spread it out and that would mean LAND or PROPERTY.

RAIN – Comes down. And it comes down kind of in sheets. SNOW is a little different. It is softer. You can do RAIN it is hard. Windy and RAINY.

SNOW – You take and you touch your shoulders and then you flick it off and drift it down. You can make it pretty. And the way I think of it is you are brushing off the dandruff and it flakes down. SNOW

RAINBOW – This is the sign for COLOR. You take your 5 and you wiggle it right there by your lips. And then you do the bow. COLOR and then the RAINBOW. Now you can just do this, RAINBOW. It is like with your 5 or your 4. You can do this and that it is sufficient if in context it is understood. But if you do the whole thing, COLOR and then RAINBOW then it is very clear as to what you mean.

ANIMAL – Take your B-hands or your mitten hands and you put them right here on your shoulders. And you wiggle in and out. It is like the lungs are expanding and contracting. ANIMAL. That is the generic sign for ANIMAL. There are lots of ANIMAL signs. I will do a video about just ANIMAL signs later. But this is ANIMAL in general.

Alright, so lets go through those again.

NATURE, NATURAL, NORMAL

TREE

FLOWER

SUN

MOON

STAR

EARTH

WORLD

DIRT – This is also LAND or PROPERTY if you do it out like that. So, DIRT or EARTH meaning SOIL, LAND or PROPERTY

RAIN

SNOW

RAINBOW

ANIMAL

Alright, and I have a project for you. The word GRASS, which is a NATURE sign. The word GRASS is a sign that changes around the United States. Different regions have different signs for it. So your assignment is to find out how GRASS is used in your area. What the sign for it is. Many places just spell it. But I want you to see if you can find a sign for the word GRASS and then in the comments of lesson 13, LearnSigns.com/13, if you will write out the description of GRASS using the information you learned from lesson 11 which gives you the 5 different elements for how to write out a sign. Use that information and write for us how GRASS is done in your area and we can see different ways GRASS is done. Tell us where you are from and the way you do GRASS in your area. Or, the way the Deaf do GRASS in your area.

Thank you for watching. This is LearnSigns.com lesson 13. So, LearnSigns.com/13.

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These are words that deal with basic church signs. These are not signs talking about different religious groups. I plan to do a separate lesson on that later. These are just basic signs that most churches would use in their services that may not be covered in general sign language classes. Be aware that these are the types of signs that can change from region to region and from church to church. However, most people who know sign language will know these signs. These are the basics.

Vocabulary learned in this lesson:

Vocabulary mentioned, but not actually part of the lessons:

Please click the Closed Captioned [CC] button in the video player if you need captions.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 12.

In this lesson we are going to talk about church signs. Church signs. These are words that you would use in church. Now, some church words are used differently in different types of churches. Depending on the denomination or the type of church. And, so what I am going to teach you is what we use in our churches. But this is not necessarily the way it is done in every church. And, even among—I am a baptist—even among Baptist churches, the signs can be different from one church to another. So, these are not…most of these are absolute. There is a way to do them. But there are some of these signs, and I will show you that, that very even among just people that I know and then into other churches. So just be aware of that and be careful when you are doing signs in church or when you are talking about church-type words. Just be aware that there are different ways to do it. And it’s OK to learn another way to do it. That is perfectly fine. The way I am teaching you is the way I do it and the way the folks I hang around do sign language. But you may be learning signs from a different region and the Deaf will do it a different way. That is perfectly fine. Learn from them. What I want to give you is the basics to be able to communicate, but certainly you can learn much more vocabulary by just interacting with your friends.

Alright? So let’s get into this.

As we start talking about these first few words we have the word GOD and JESUS and CHRIST. These signs, while they don’t mean anything to you right now, they are just hand gestures, they do mean something to us. So…like you would respect the name of God in spoken English, you should do so in sign language as well. So you doing God’s name in an irreverent or flippant way in sign language can be offensive to people. Even though to you it is just a hand shape or hand movement. So be aware of that whenever you do these signs.

GOD GOD

GOD – I do it where I take my B-hand is out here in front and it kind of comes back towards me and down. Sometimes you will see it done where it comes from the side and comes down. That’s fine. But the idea is that GOD comes down to us. GOD

JESUS

JESUS – You are going to use your sensitive fingers. So you take your 5s and you bend your middle fingers in and you are going to touch the palms of your hands. JESUS. JESUS – show the nail prints in the hands.

CHRIST

CHRIST – This is the letter C, and if you are right handed you are going to place it on your left shoulder. And then you come down to your left hip. CHRIST. And this is based on the word KING. You do the same thing with the letter K. Right-handed put your K on your left shoulder and then bring it down to your right hip. If you are left-handed your KING starts on your right shoulder, your opposite shoulder, and then down to your left hip: the same side. Now the word CHRIST is with the letter C.

HOLY SPIRIT

HOLY SPIRIT – This is the word HOLY, and this is one of those you will see done a couple of different ways. I do a little circle and then CLEAN. Or you will see it as the H drawn across the palette, like you are doing 1 WEEK or 2 WEEKS. So this is HOLY or HOLY (like CLEAN). And then SPIRIT, SPIRIT is the numbers 5-8 on both hands. SPIRIT. HOLY SPIRIT. HOLY SPIRIT.

BIBLE – This is JESUS’ BOOK. JESUS’ BOOK. JESUS BOOK is BIBLE.

CHURCH

CHURCH – Take your letter C and you’re going to put it on the rock. “On this rock I will build my church.” CHURCH is the C on the rock.

SIN

SIN – I don’t really have an explanation for this sign. I don’t understand why we do it this way, but we do. It is the letters X, so you have both of your Xes. You are going to start right here at your chin and it comes back slightly. Back and then goes out in a circle. SIN – And you do this once or twice for the word SIN. SIN

GRACE

GRACE – There are many different ways to do the sign for GRACE. Here are the two that I use. Take the cup and put it over your heart. And then the letter G you are going to pull it out and kind of splash it back. GRACE. GRACE. Another way I do GRACE is, it is the letter G again. You are going to draw a small sun and then splash it onto yourself. GRACE GRACE – God’s GRACE is given to us. GRACE

MERCY

MERCY – This is your sensitives fingers. You are going to touch your chest like at your heart area. You rub down and then you come out and you spread the MERCY on the other person. MERCY. Again your sensitive fingers. You touch your chest at your heart area and then you put the MERCY out there. This is also the word to PITY. To PITY someone. It can be used sarcastically, “Aww, you POOR BABY.” POOR BABY. MERCY.

HEAVEN HEAVEN

HEAVEN – You will see this done many different ways as well, but the idea is that you kinda build up to something up there higher. Then you put a roof on it. Or, sometimes you will just see it straight across. The way I do it is that I have my horizon. I am going to go beyond the horizon and build a house. HEAVEN HEAVEN

HELL – Now this is the word HELL as in the place, not the curse word HELL. I am not going to teach you that one. Alright. HELL. You can do it a couple of different ways. One is to do red and then fire. HELL. Or, the other is to point down forcibly, point down forcibly and then do fire. HELL. Again this is the place.

PUNISH

PUNISH – You take your fist here and the idea is you’ve got a person, got his legs sticking out there, being held by the neck and you are beating him. PUNISH. PUNISH. You take and whack the person. The little person’s legs hanging out and you whack him. It is just this right here PUNISH. PUNISH.

REPENT

REPENT – I haven’t taught you the word yet for CHANGE, but CHANGE is the X. X on both hands, and you are going to put the base of your palms together. Right there at the wrist. One palm facing you and the other palm facing away from you. Now you rotate your palms around so that the one that was facing away from you is now facing you and vice versa. CHANGE. That is with the X. CHANGE.

Now there are several different meanings for the word CHANGE. We will deal with that later. This is the word CHANGE. Now, if you do it with the Rs that is the word REPENT. To CHANGE your mind or CHANGE your ways.

Alright. So these are church words. Let me go through them again for you.

GOD

JESUS

CHRIST

HOLY SPIRIT

BIBLE

CHURCH

SIN

GRACE or GRACE

MERCY

HEAVEN

HELL or HELL

PUNISH

REPENT REPENT

Alright. Now these are words related to what we talk about church often. I will do a video later of words that are religious words. Different religions, different denominations. So I will give you a video on just those types of words as well. There are many words that seem to be very focused to church ministry, to worship and those kinds of things. We may do several videos that are specific to that. But here are your basic church words that you will want to know.

You can find information about these words at LearnSigns.com/12. This is lesson 12, so you do LearnSigns.com/12. If you want to watch the videos with the captioning on them, I have the closed captioning on the YouTube version of the videos which is embedded at the website at LearnSigns.com. So if you are having trouble, if you are hard of hearing and learning signs and having trouble reading my lips. Then you can get the captions at YouTube or at LearnSigns.com in the video that is embedded there. Thank you for watching. I look forward to having you in the next lesson.

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There are 5 elements to most signs. They are: shape, location, movement, orientation and non-manual elements. When you are learning new signs, especially when you don’t have a book or video to refer to, you need to write down these 5 aspects for the signs you are trying to learn. Of these 5 elements, the one that may not be used as often is the non-manual elements.

Here are the 5 elements along with how to describe the sign for GRANDMOTHER.

This is the shape of the hand when doing the sign. In many cases it is a shape that is similar to a letter or number. Or there are a few other shapes you will see often. Some of these are the mitten hand, claw, and bent V fingers. Use a description of the hand shape when notating signs.

For GRANDMOTHER the hand shape is just like the number 5.

This is a short description of where the sign is placed or moved from and to. For GRANDMOTHER you can say that you place the 5-hand on the chin.

There will usually be some type of movement with a sign. If there is no movement, then you can say that the sign is placed at a location. Building on the two previous elements, you would say that GRANDMOTHER is done by placing the 5 hand on the chin and then pushing it forward about 6 inches.

This is the orientation of the hand when making the sign. Often I will notate signs by writing down the orientation of the palm. Does it face up, down, left or right? For GRANDMOTHER it is easier to write down where the fingertips of the 5-hand are pointing. GRANDMOTHER is done with the fingertips pointed straight up.

This would be things like facial expression or body language. Not all signs will have this. Many words can be negated by shaking the head NO when doing the sign.

The word for GRANDMOTHER does not have any specific non-manual elements that need to be notated.

A full written description of GRANDMOTHER would be something like this: Place the 5-hand, with the fingers pointing up, on the chin. Then move, or push, the hand forward about 6 inches.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com. This is lesson number 11.

In this lesson we are going to talk about how to notate signs. Or how to write down sign descriptions so that you can view a new sign that somebody is doing, write it down quickly and be able to reproduce it later. In case it is a new sign you haven’t learn.

You are probably in a sign language class. If these are the only lessons you are taking you have a teacher here. That is teaching you. You get a chance to see what I am teaching. But there are sometimes you will be in a class where the teacher will use signs that they are not necessarily teaching. Maybe they are talking with a deaf student, or you have a deaf teacher and they are working through an interpreter. Sometimes they will use signs that you don’t know, or signs that they are not necessarily planning on teaching.

If you had a way to write those signs down quickly, then you could learn many more signs than what is being taught in the lessons. So this is an important way…important information to know so that you can get new signs, or learn new signs that aren’t being taught by your teachers. Or, maybe you have some deaf friends that are talking between themselves that you want to write down the description of the signs. You don’t have to be an artist for this. You don’t have to be able to draw a description of the sign. You can write it down quickly.

So here are some things you can do, things you can learn on how to notate signs quickly.

You already know some basic hand shapes. You know the alphabet. You know some basic general signs. So now you have enough signs and enough information that you can build new signs with that.

For example, you know the sign for MOTHER. It is the 5-hand. So you are using the number 5 that we learned earlier in the lessons. You already knew the number 5 and I just said, when we learned the sign for MOTHER, that you take th 5-hand and you place it on your chin. Well, if you saw someone do that then you could write that down quickly. You could write, “they put their 5-hand on their chin with their thumb touching their chin. What does this mean?” Then you find out what it means. You can do that simply by writing down the elements you know—the 5-hand, or the A-hand for girl. You can use the elements you already know to build new signs.

So, let’s talk about the 5 basic elements of each sign. Every sign will have these elements. Some are more important than others in signs, but they all basically have 5 elements.

Number 1: Hand shape

The shape of your hand needs to be distinct. You need to have a distinct action or shape for your hand. It is not lazy. Let’s go back to the word for MOTHER. It is the 5-hand. If you just went, MOTHER. It is not really distinct that it is a 5, it is just your thumb sitting here. Well, that is not the sign for mother. You need to have a distinct shape for your hand. So, shape is the first one. You need to have a distinct shape.

Number 2: Location.

Where is the sign located? For example, the word KNOW. The word KNOW. It is your B-hand, or your mitten hand. The B is actually with your thumb in. If I say it is the mitten hand it is with the thumb out. Then it is bent. Bent mitten. Or, bent B. Then you are going to place it on your forehead. The fingertips on your forehead. So the location is at your forehead. For MOTHER the location is at your chin.

And then you have Movement

Number 3: Movement

What does the sign do? Does it move from top to bottom? Front to back? Or back to front? What is the movement of the sign?

So you have shape, location, movement and then orientation.

Number 4: Orientation

If you have the word MOTHER again, the orientation is that your fingertips are up. Your fingertips are up. Your thumb is touching your chin and your fingertips are up. So your hand shape is the 5-hand. The location is on the chin. The movement is that it comes in, or in this case you would say you place your thumb with your fingers up. And that is your orientation on your chin.

So those four elements right there tell you how to make the sign for MOTHER. You’ve got shape, location, movement and orientation.

Fifth Element: Non-manual Elements

Non-manual information. For example, facial expressions are part of that. If you do the word QUESTION, QUESTION you take your 1…we are going to take our shape of the 1-hand and we’re going to bend it over while moving in the shape of a question mark. QUESTION. QUESTION.

So we have shape, location in front of you. Movement is that it moves like the shape of a question mark. And the orientation is the palm is out. Now you put the non-manual information is your facial expression. “I have a question.” Have a question. A question.

So you see all five of those elements in there. Now when you learn new signs, when you are seeing other people sign and learning from your teacher, then you can take quickly and write down the sign. To do the word QUESTION here is my description. It has shape, location, it has movement, orientation (palm left, right, up down). It has non-manual information, things that don’t pertain to the hands. Maybe there’s a shoulder shrug that goes with it. For a sign. So that would be your non-manual information.

Those are your five basic elements for each sign. So you can take your basic hand shapes that you already know. Your alphabet. Your numbers. Others signs. You already know MOTHER. So now, FATHER you do the same thing, except you do it at your forehead. FATHER. MOTHER, FATHER. If you already knew MOTHER, then you could quickly say, Well, it is just like MOTHER except it is at the forehead instead of the chin. So that helps you with your telling the location. Everything else is the same, but the location is different.

So try to think through those real basic five elements there when you go to notate or write signs down.

There’s your five elements for how to use signs. You’re going to see later, we are going to talk about what is called classifiers. You actually already know some classifiers. But in some cases you can say it is the claw hand. I have talked about that I have used the claw hand. It is the 5 bent down into a claw. That is a classifier. It is not really a number, letter, or whatever. But it is a shape that is going to be used in many different ways. And you can learn your notating new signs that you are learning, you can learn all kinds of new signs and notate them this way without having to be an artist.

And so that is what I wanted to teach you in this lesson. Is that you can notate signs. And you ought to. You should look around. Maybe watch some YouTube videos that have deaf people telling stories. Oh, there are many deaf stories you can find on YouTube. They are great stories. Maybe you don’t know this sign. What was the shape that was used and how did they do this. You can learn many new signs by doing that, by writing things down and practicing them. Of course, it is helpful if you already know what the sign is and then you can write it down and practice and learn.

When my wife and I lived in South America, we were learning Argentine sign language. And what I would do is I would sit in my class, I would go to class and my wife didn’t. She also knows sign language. I would sit in my class and I would notate all the signs I would learn in class and I could go home and reproduce every one of them perfectly because of knowing these five elements for each one of the signs and writing it down so I could reproduce it faithfully and clearly for her.

So make sure that when you write down signs you write down those five elements and then make sure you reproduce those signs properly.

Let me say a word about orientation. I think the others are pretty clear. Shape, location, movement then orientation and non-manual information.

Orientation: Sometimes you will see in books, if you are looking, they will talk about supine hand or your prone hand. Don’t worry about those fancy terms. Just learn that, and this is the way I do it, I do it “palm up,” “palm facing down,” “palm facing to the left or to the right.” If you are reading a book and it does the description and says your palm faces left. Then you need to realize that most of the time books are written for right handed people. So if you are left-handed and it says the palm faces left when you do this sign. Then for you, as a left-handed person your palm is going to face right. Now, up and down is still the same, but your palm left and right will change based on which hand is your dominant hand. So if you are dominantly left-handed, then you palm orientation is usually going to be different, or opposite on the left and right from what it shows in the book. And then, down, palm up, palm facing you, palm out those are basic orientations.

Fingertips up for MOTHER. Fingertips touching the forehead, and that would be your orientation for KNOW. For the word KNOW. So think about those things when you are writing down orientation. What that means is, how is your hand oriented in space. And that will help you.

Alright? So you have five elements to writing down, or notating signs are shape, location, movement, orientation and non-manual information.

I will have this written out at LearnSigns.com/11. I will have the show notes for this and I will have these five elements written out with a short description of those.

I appreciate you watching. Please tell your fiends about the LearnSigns podcast and they can subscribe to it as well. They can get the lessons each week, or as often as I put them out. Right now they have been weekly, but watch for the new lessons when they come out. You can find them each time at LearnSigns.com. This lesson can be found at LearnSigns.com/11. You can find that there. Thank you for watching.

The post LearnSigns 011: Notating Signs appeared first on LearnSigns.

These are signs dealing with feelings or emotions.

The video above is captioned for those needing captioning. Be sure to click on the [CC] logo on the video player to see the captions.

Hello! This is LearnSigns lesson number 10. Number 10. Have you been practicing your numbers?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

You can go back to one of the earlier lessons to get the rest of the numbers. I believe it is lesson number 2 [It is actually lesson number 3].

But, this is lesson number 10. We are going to talk about feelings. Feelings. When we do feelings, many feeling words, words that deal with emotions use what we call the sensitive finger. It is your 5-hand with your middle finger pointed forward. Pulled forward and you will use the tip of your middle finger as the indicator of a feeling.

Now, not all of these words will use that. But many emotion-type words, feeling words use that sensitive finger. And you have a lot of…it is called the sensitive finger because it is very sensitive. So that formation where you take your 5 and bend your middle finger down forward. And you will use that.

So FEELINGS is that you take your sensitive finger and you will rub on your heart. Just a little rub up. FEELINGS. It is also the word FEEL.

HAPPY HAPPY – You take your B-hands or your mitten hands and it is kind of the same motion as FEEL or FEELINGS, except now it is going to be on the sides of your chest. HAPPY

SAD, SAD – There are a couple of different ways to do this one. SAD where you pull your face down. SAD. Or you will see it with just the finger and drawing a big frown. Oh, I’m so sad. SAD, SAD

MAD – Now this is MAD as in ANGRY. I realize that we often use the word MAD incorrectly. MAD actually means to be mad like a rabid dog. However, in common English we talk about being MAD or ANGRY. MAD, you take one hand, your claw-hand. It is your 5 made into a claw. You will come up ANGRY, or MAD. Or you will see it with just, right here in front of the face where you pull out with a claw. MAD, MAD

Now, ANGER is a stronger emotion. So it has both hands. ANGRY. ANGRY. And you put an angry face on. He was ANGRY. Oh, he was not happy. ANGRY

LIKE – This is LIKE as in to enjoy something. You take your 5 and you pull from your heart, your heart’s string. Pull from your heart’s string and pull out to an 8. So you do 5-8. 5-8. What you are doing is doing the 5 and then using that sensitive finger and touching your thumb. And you pull out to an 8. So you are pulling the heart’s string to LIKE.

Now, DON’T LIKE you can take and do that motion and then flick it away. Flick it away. And that is HATE. HATE – With 1 or 2 fingers and you will flick your 8 away from you. Now DON’T LIKE is LIKE and you flick it away. DON’T LIKE.

Or, you can negate the LIKE with the way you act. You can say, I don’t like that. I don’t like that. But the sign DON’T LIKE is you pull out your LIKE and then you flick it away.

And then the word HATE or DISGUST, AWFUL is with your finger. Your 8, like you are going to do the number 8, but you are going to flick away from you. You will also see it done up here at the forehead. AWFUL AWFUL. Oh, I HATE that. DON’T LIKE that.

OK?

LIKE, DON’T LIKE

WANT WANT WANT – You are going to take your 5-hands and turn them palms up. Then you are going to pull back to you into a claw. WANT, I WANT. You can do it with one hand. WANT, WANT or WANT.

Now to say DON’T WANT you take and as you come back you turn them upside down. DON’T WANT. DON’T WANT. You can say DON’T or NOT WANT. But this is the sign DON’T WANT. It is much stronger in what it means. It conveys much more meaning when you say, I DON’T WANT that. DON’T WANT. Or you can do it with one hand. DON’T WANT.

LOVE, LOVE – Say it with the open hands or with the fists, either way. You are showing a big hug. Oh, I LOVE you. LOVE, LOVE

You can say, I LOVE you by using the pronoun I and LOVE and YOU, just pointing to the other person. That is one way to say it. Another way is, it is an idiomatic expression. It uses one sign for the meaning I LOVE YOU. This is the I, L and then the Y. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU. You will see this used a lot amongst friends. To say you are leaving from a get together and you say, I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU. Goodbye.

CRY, CRY, CRY – You take your index fingers and you are going to show the crying. CRY.

TOUCH – Again you are going to use your sensitive finger and touch the back of your hand. We did FEEL and then TOUCH. This word is used idiomatically to mean other things. For example, you can say, I’ve BEEN TO the Eiffel Tower. (I haven’t, but I can say that.) You would use this to TOUCH, to say I’ve TOUCHED there. I’ve TOUCHED France. I’ve TOUCHED South America. And that is used to mean that you’ve been there. You’ve experienced it.

EXCITED – Again your sensitive fingers and you are going to do, roll toward yourself. So it comes up and then out towards yourself. These are alternating. It is kind of like the word FEEL, except over here to the sides, alternating. EXCITED, EXCITED

AFRAID, AFRAID, AFRAID – Ooo, I’m SCARED. I’m AFRAID.

SORRY – Oh, I’m SORRY. We’ve talked about this before. SORRY, SORRY. Your S-hand or your A-hand. Oh, I’m sorry.

Then two more that don’t necessary fit with FEELINGS, but good signs to cover here and that is GOOD and BAD.

GOOD GOOD – You have your palm is going to touch your lips and will come down. We’ve covered this before. GOOD

And then, BAD. GOOD is where your palms, both palms face up. BAD your palms are going to come together. BAD

GOOD and BAD

Alright? This is lesson 10 we are going to talk about feelings. Let’s go through these one more time.

FEELINGS, or FEEL both of them the same thing.

HAPPY, HAPPY

SAD, SAD or SAD

MAD, MAD

ANGRY, ANGRY

LIKE, LIKE

DON’T LIKE – Oh, I DON’T LIKE that. DON’T LIKE

HATE or AWFUL – You can do it from your forehead too. Oh, that’s AWFUL. I HATE that.

WANT, WANT

DON’T WANT, DON’T WANT

LOVE – And you can say. I LOVE you. Or, I LOVE YOU.

CRY, CRY

TOUCH, TOUCH

EXCITED, EXCITED

AFRAID – Oh, that SCARES me. AFRAID

SORRY

GOOD

BAD

You did good job learning the signs in this lesson.

This is LearnSigns.com/10 You can go to the website and see this list of words and other information about learning sign language.

LearnSigns.com/10

The post LearnSigns 010: Feelings appeared first on LearnSigns.

These are words related to learning and education; therefore, I entitled the lesson School. However, it isn’t as much about the place as it is about the activities done in school while learning.

Here is the main vocabulary covered in this lesson:

The following words are secondary words that you can learn if you are paying attention. This list also includes some of the signs we have learned before:

If you need the captions please click the Closed Captioned [CC] logo in the video player.

Hello! Welcome again to LearnSigns.com. This is lesson number 9. Lesson number 9. We are going to talk about words dealing with learning or school words.

Alright?

This is SCHOOL.

SCHOOL – Take your palms and you press them together. You are actually hitting the palms themselves. Not clapping. But the palms of your hands are hitting each other. School. It is a 5 or it can be a B. Either way. SCHOOL

LEARN LEARN – You take the information out of the book. You have a book here in front of you. You take it out of the book and put it in your head. LEARN LEARN

STUDY STUDY – The information is in the book and you are going to read it and pull it up into your head. STUDY – It starts…it goes back and forth. It doesn’t really start in one place and go back to the other. It is back and forth. STUDY

Or you will see it with just the fingertips waving without the hand moving back and forth. STUDY

UNDERSTAND UNDERSTAND – It is like the light bulb goes off. You take and flick your 1 up. UNDERSTAND Oh, I UNDERSTAND. UNDERSTAND.

MISUNDERSTAND MISUNDERSTAND – You take your V and touch one finger to your head and then twist around to the other. I start with my index finger and twist around to my middle finger. MISUNDERSTAND

CONFUSED CONFUSED – You put a confused look on your face and you take your claw hands and twist them around. CONFUSED. I don’t UNDERSTAND. CONFUSED

Now you could also, for MISUNDERSTAND, you could say NOT UNDERSTAND. That is fine. Many signs will have a negative sign that is specific for it. Or you can say NOT and the sign itself. NOT UNDERSTAND

THINK THINK – You can poke your head or give it a little twist. THINK. Hmmm. Going to THINK about that. THINK

KNOW – Now, THINK or THOUGHT is one finger, but KNOW is with your whole hand this is K N O W, as in to KNOW something. It is going to be all four of your fingertips here. KNOW

REMEMBER REMEMBER – You are going to take the thumb of your A-hand and you will start right at your forehead like THINK and then you will push out to STAY. This is the word STAY, or sometimes you will see it with the Ys. A thought that STAYS. REMEMBER REMEMBER – A THOUGHT that STAYS. REMEMBER

FORGET – You wipe your head clean. FORGET. Oh, I FORGOT. Sorry, I FORGOT. Wipe your head clean. FORGET

MEAN or MEANING – Now this isn’t mean as in an angry person. This is MEAN as in what something signifies. MEAN – Take your V-hand and poke it into the palm of your other hand and then twist it around. MEAN or MEANING. What does it SIGNIFY? What does it MEAN. MEAN or MEANING

TEACH TEACH – This is taking the information from my head and I will put it into your head.

TEACH – It goes from big to small. It is like I have lots of information and a little bit of it gets into you. TEACH TEACH

TEACHER – We are going to learn a special sign here. This is TEACH and this sign is what is called the AGENT sign, or the PERSON sign. The person that does the action. This is TEACH and then you do PERSON. TEACHER – You will see this with a lot of different types of signs. Many times with the -ER ending, but not necessarily. These are signs that are used to show someone who does the action. TEACH or TEACHER

TEST TEST – There are a couple of different ways you could do this. You can see this with just one finger. TEST – Just like QUESTION, we’ve talked about before. QUESTION or TEST – I do it with two hands. And sometimes you will see it EXAM, something that is bigger than just a TEST. You may see it with the 5-hands like there are a bunch of questions. EXAM – You don’t have to make that distinction. TEST

LESSON You have seen me do this quite often. LESSON LESSON – It can also be LIST. You take your bent B-hand and turn it with the palm toward you and you work down your other palm. LESSON looks like this. LESSON LESSON or LIST

NEED or MUST NEED or MUST – It is just your X-hand and you are going to give a little tug like you are hanging it on a hook. NEED or MUST I NEED to do that. I MUST do that. You HAVE to do that today. NEED or MUST

WRITE WRITE – This is as in to write a letter. Not right as in correct, but write a letter. WRITE

PASS PASSED – This is an odd sign. This is the word like to PASS one car, PASSING another. But it is also used to PASS a test. PASS a test. Here’s the standard and you are going to go PAST the standard. You are going to be successful in accomplishing that. PASS the test.

FAIL – Take your V and turn it upside down on your other palm and you take it out and down. FAIL – It looks like TWO WEEKS. Except TWO WEEKS you go straight across. Remember that when we talked about time. TWO WEEKS. Except this one you put the back of your hand on your palm. You go across and down. FAIL Fall off. FAIL

HARD or DIFFICULT

HARD – You do your two, what I call my snake fingers. Two hands with the crooked V and then you bang one down onto the other. HARD or DIFFICULT. Sometimes you will see people do their wrists. I do it right on the Vs themselves. HARD or DIFFICULT. There are various ways to do that one.

EASY EASY – It is not HARD, it is EASY. And you pull up your hand EASILY. OK?

We will go through them again.

This is lesson number 9. If you go to LearnSigns.com/9 you can find this lesson. I will have the list of all the words that we talked about in this lesson today.

Thank you for watching. I will see you next time.

The post LearnSigns 009: School appeared first on LearnSigns.

Learning about time.

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This is a list of words which have common letter combinations. I pulled some words from a longer list of words you can use to practice your spelling with. Try to notice common letter combinations and use them to your advantage for both spelling and reading spelling. The more words you practice the easier different letter combinations will become for you.

Remember to spell words as if they were whole words and not individual letters. Refer back to lesson 2 for the rules on spelling if you are still having trouble understanding the concepts of fingerspelling.

The words in this lesson that I had you read or spell:

You can view the closed captions by clicking the Closed Caption [CC] logo on the video player above.

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Common questions words and phrases used in ASL.

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The post LearnSigns 006: Question Words appeared first on LearnSigns.