This is week four of my Genius Hour project and this week I finally started learning gestures in sign language. I can say that I feel confident about some of the signs I have learned this week and I can finally start to sign some short sentences (albeit rather slowly). However, I still have difficulty understanding signing when its being down in normal speed, I definitely need the other person to sign slowly, so I can recognize the gestures and have time to process what is being signed.
Learning process
This week I have been watching Bill Vicars Lessons to learning sign language and not going to lie I kind of wish I had learned the alphabet first. He uses the alphabet a lot in his videos and I am just sitting there lost as to what he is signing with the alphabet. On the positive side I have learned some of the letters. I know the letters, a, b, s, l and o. B and O I mainly know because when he would ask for his student to sign out a name, I would sign "Bob" while following along since I technically only needed to know 2 letters :D
All the words represented in the hand are the signs that I have learned this week.
What did I learn?
There were two parts of the sign language that I found to be very interesting to learn this week.
The first was that the 5 W's; who, what, when, where and why is signed at the end of the sentence. So for example if I wanted to sign where is Bob? I would first sign Bob (with the sign alphabet) and then I would sign where. Sign language has it's own word formation and it is not a word for word translation. This is definitely a struggle for me, as I feel like I'm conditioned to translate it how I would normally say it out aloud. I'm going to try to sign more of the 5 W's in my conversation, this can allow me to start remembering that it comes at the end of the sentence rather than signing it at the front of the sentence.
The second was the way the word "what" can be (usually) signed with lowered eyebrows. I found this to be very interesting, but it confuses me a bit as I'm trying to relate the words to a gesture, and it's hard to remember that lowering my eyebrows is a gesture for "what". The times that I do remember that "what" is signed with lowered eyebrows, I'll have lowered eyebrows for the whole sentence, The word "what" has a proper gesture, but with sign language I've noticed that they try to shorten the sentence down so less gestures are needed. "How" was another gesture that I found to be interesting. There is a gesture for "how" and this is accompanied with lowered eyebrows. However, if you are signing "How are you?" you keep the eyebrows raised with the sign instead of lowered. I'm still trying to remember this when I am signing, and it usually ends up with the my eyebrows moving all over the place.
I may appear awkward in the video, and that would be because I do feel awkward :D I have got to say it's very weird to see yourself on video.
Similarities and confusion
I am starting to see some gestures that are similar like, "thank you" and "good". Both have the hand starting at the mouth and then coming away from the mouth as if you were giving air kisses. The distinction between both is that for thank you, the hand goes from the mouth to the person you are thanking, while for good, the hand goes from the mouth and down.
On the left is the gesture for "Good" and on the right is the gesture for "Thank you".
"Good" can use the hand to capture the other hand (as shown above), or it can be used without the hand (see below). As you can both signs (good and thank you) look very similar to one another, but once you make the distinction of where the hand is pointing after the mouth makes it more clear what word the sign is representing.
Favourite sign of the week
The word that I've had the most fun signing definitely has got to be "nosy". My family knows the sign for "nosy", the sign is pretty self-explanatory and it's a fun sign to do as well. My family and I have been joking around with this sign, and signing and calling each other nosy, so this is definitely a sign that I will not be forgetting in the future.
Difficult signs of the week
On the other hand, the words I've had the most difficulty signing are "brother" and "sister". It's like my fingers refuse to do the sign properly. I almost always seem to mess it up. I've been practicing signing this to both my brother and sister and 9 out of ten times I will mess it up :( That was until I found out I was singing it wrong, now that I am actually signing it correctly it is a lot easier (still having difficulty with my fingers though).
Questions &Answers
One of the questions I had was if it matters what hand I am using when signing. If I start signing with my right hand, do I stick to that hand for all main gestures and the left hand would be used to support my right hand in gesturing (two-handed signs)? I noticed that when I was signing I would use both hands, for example, I'd use one hand to sign 'understand' and the other hand to sign 'you'. Not going to lie this made me confused and my hands would clash with each other a lot.
I found the answer to this question from Signing Savvy and Bill Vicars. It actually doesn't matter if you sign with your left hand or your right hand, but it is important to stick to one hand as the dominant hand. You should not be switching back and forth between your hands when signing.
Some "rules" that Bill Vicars recommends when using your right/left hand for signing:
Signs that use one hand: Use your dominant hand
Signs that use two hands, but only one hand is moving: Use your dominant hand as the hand that moves
Signs that use two hands and both hands are moving: Use both hands
While I was practicing signing I had another question come to my mind, I was wondering if it was necessary to have short nails when signing. The reason as to why I was curious was because I have definitely made marks on my skin when I would accidently dig my nails into my hands and face while practicing signing :(
On the bright side I learned how easy the gesture is for fingernail (shown below on the left towards the end of the video). However, according to Bill Vicar most times the word "nail" will actually be finger spelled (got to get to learning that alphabet!)
I couldn't find anything that specifically stated that shorter nails are required to sign, but I did find a reddit post that discussed how to sign without making marks. One of the users recommended:
Be gentle with signing, a light tap is all that is needed
Take rings off or wear the ring on a chain
Shorter nailsare suggested as it can prevent accidental harm when signing
Avoid flashy nail polish as it can be distracting when you are signing
Practice, practice and practice as this will allow you to get used to how your hands move when you sign and eventually you will feel more natural when get a feel for it
This clicked with me as I am definitely signing too hard, maybe I'm in the thinking process that the harder I sign the word, the better someone will recognize what I am singing. Tip 2 I feel like will be the easiest rule to follow as I don't wear rings. Shorter nails are still recommended, so I will definitely be cutting them to a shorter length, because I have a feeling I will still sign hard/aggressive until I get into the flow of it. As for the nail polish I tend to wear more neutral colors, so that's also checked off. From what I've seen I think the nail polish tip is more recommended for interpreters than people that are learning sign language (but I might have to look in this more). Hopefully with my practicing sign language can become natural, or at least start feeling natural to my fingers.
Future Questions?
After re-reading my blog I noticed that I use word "sign" and "gesture" interchangeably when I am talking about sign language. I don't actually know if using the word "gesture" here is correct when referring to ASL. This is definitely a question I should have had answered beforehand but this will be at the top of my list for week 5.
Next week
For Week 5, I will continue learning more gestures and I will begin to learn the ASL alphabet. Now that I know some gestures, I'm actually really excited to learn the alphabet. The first thing I plan to sign is my name. In the Bill Vicar video, he asked a couple of times, "what is your name?", and my response to this would be to sign "My name is" and end it there (sometimes I would just sign Bob as my name) but I'm excited to actually complete the sentence with my own name!
This is week 6 of my Genius Hour Project, and this week I tried to communicate in longer sentences, the keyword being tried . It was a nice goal to have for this week, but sadly a goal that I was not able to complete. I feel like I still need to learn more words in sign language and learn how to construct the sentences when signing before I can properly communicate in longer sentences. All the new words that I learned in sign language this week Forgetfulness I've noticed that the signs I have previously learned are signs that I am now forgetting as I am not using them. To counter this I will try to watch more than one Bill Vicar video in a week. He repeats a lot of the previously learned signs, which can help with the memorization process. I will also try to use signs when I am speaking, so far to date I have said I will do this, but haven't. This week I learned that all yes or no questions require the eyebrows to be raised. This is similar to all WH - questions that requi
Hello everyone and welcome to my Blog! My name is Jasman Nagra and I am currently in the Concurrent Education Program at Brock University. My teachables are biology and chemistry. I don't think I have ever written a blog before so this is pretty new to me, but it seems interesting and fun so I am excited to see where this blog will go! The topic I have chosen for my Genius Project is to learn sign language. I remember trying (where I would try for a day and give up) to learn it in elementary and middle school. I was interested in learning sign language when I was younger because I remember that in the agenda's that we were given, there would be a page dedicated to showing the alphabet in sign language. I always thought it would be cool to learn it, but it was difficult as some of the signs looked the same. My interest was peaked again when I watched A Quiet Place and The Silence . It would be a very useful skill to know in case we have aliens that are sensitive to sound o
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