Because ASL satisfies a foreign language requirement at your college or university. Good for you!
❯❯ You met an interesting Deaf girl or engaging Deaf guy, and knowing some Sign will really help out. At least you’re honest.
Icons Used in This Book
To help you find certain types of information more easily, we include several icons in this book. You find them on the left-hand side of the page, sprinkled throughout:
Beyond the Book
This book comes with an online Cheat Sheet that contains helpful reference information. To get the Cheat Sheet, go to www.dummies.com and type “American Sign Language For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Your purchase of this book also gives you access to lots of online videos. Many of the dialogues in this book are shown online (as indicated by the Play This icon), and you'll also find a handy mini dictionary of common terms. You can access all of the videos at www.dummies.com/go/aslvideos.
Where to Go from Here
The beauty of this book is that you can begin anywhere you want. You may find it helpful to start with the first few chapters to get down the basics, but if that’s not your thing, feel free to jump in wherever you want. Use the table of contents and the index to point you in the right direction (no pun intended). Find a subject that interests you, start signing, and have fun! Just remember, you’re going to make mistakes, but don’t let that discourage you. Instead, use those mistakes as opportunities to solidify and strengthen what you now know to be right. Nothing worthwhile comes easily.
Part 1
American Sign Language and You
IN THIS PART …
Trying out the signs you already know.
Structuring what you know and adding to your foundation.
Learning some basic expressions, numbers, and new vocabulary.
Building on your base of knowledge with things you know from home.
Chapter 1
You Already Know a Little Sign
IN THIS CHAPTER
Knowing some of ASL’s iconic signs
Managing the manual alphabet
Creating compounds
Handling handshapes
Communicating using gestures and facial expressions
Signing isn’t difficult, although moving your hands, body, and face to convey meaning instead of just using your voice may seem odd at first. But with time, practice, and interaction, you’ll see that hand movements can be meaningful. Your goal and reward is being able to meet and communicate with a whole new group of people – people who share your opinions, hobbies, and more. That’s definitely worth the initial awkwardness!
This chapter illustrates the manual alphabet in American Sign Language and talks about hand and body movements. Here, we show you the basics of making handshapes and using facial expressions and body language to get your ideas across. And we start off by reassuring you that you already know some signs. Trust us – you do.
For example, Sign is interwoven in your gestures when you use your index finger to motion to someone to “come here,” when you shake your head “yes” and “no,” and when you give someone the “evil eye.” When you put these in signing context, you convey volumes of information.
Discovering Signs That Look like What They Mean
Iconic or natural signs look like what they mean – the up and down motion of brushing your teeth that means toothbrush, for instance, or the right and left punches that mean boxing. Iconic signs always show action. Here are some examples:
Like the sign for boxing, many sports signs are iconic. Check out Chapter 12 for more sports signs.
BEING A WINNING RECEIVER
If you have trouble reading someone’s signs, check the context and then ask yourself, “What could this person mean?” Remember that it’s okay to ask someone to repeat something, just like you do when you don’t understand someone speaking to you. You can show a signer you’re “listening” by nodding your head. If at any time someone is signing something to you and you begin not to understand, stop the person and let her know what you did understand and where you stopped understanding. This is perfectly acceptable. Don’t wait for the person to finish a long, drawn-out thought and then say, “I don’t understand.”
Remember not to watch the signer’s hands primarily. You want to watch the signer’s hands through your peripheral vision. Keep your eyes on the whole picture, from the signer’s abdomen on up to her head. The eyes, face, hands, and body movements tell the whole story.
Building on the Basics of Sign: Gestures and Expression
You already know that “speaking” ASL is mostly a matter of using your fingers, hands, and arms. What you may not understand yet is that facial expressions and body language are important and sometimes crucial for conveying and understanding signs and their meaning. If you’re focused only on a signer’s hands, you can easily miss the slightest rolling of the eyes, a raised eyebrow, or the signer “pointing” at something with the eyes. So expect to see hands on hips in frustration, eyes open wide in shock, and hands on mouths covering a hearty laugh. You know these gestures already and are off to a good start.
The following sections explain how you get nearly your whole body involved in ASL.
Signers use the manual alphabet (shown later in this section) all the time, especially beginners. Signers fingerspell – spell using the manual alphabet – certain words and, at first, people’s names. So as a beginner, feel free to fingerspell any word you don’t know the sign for. If you want to fingerspell two or more words in a row, such as a title or someone’s first and last name, pause for just a second between each word.