Learning The ASL Alphabet

Welcome Back Everyone!!

This is week five of my Genius Project and I feel like I accomplished a lot this week! This week I learned the alphabet, I learned some new signs according to categories and I answered some of my questions from last week.


All of the new signs that I learned this week

The Alphabet

I've finally learnt the alphabet! And wow wow wow, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, probably due to the benefit of the ASL alphabet video I watched. They went extremely slow and there was a lot of repetition present in the video. My fingers felt sore after but it was totally worth it. The ASL alphabet always looked so complicated whenever I would see it and know that I know it, I am so happy that I was able to learn it!!

Favourite Letter

My favourite letter to sign has to be "K", while my least favourite probably would be "M" and "N". Fortunately for me, my name has both the letters "M" and "N" :( I was so happy that I was finally able to complete the sentence, "My name is... Jasman" and I was actually able to sign my name this time. I'm not going to lie I got carried away and started signing all my family members names to them, my dad's and mom's names were the most fun to sign as they have more letters in their names. My mom has nine letters in her name, my dad has thirteen, compare this to the six letters in my name, their names were a lot more fun to sign!


Me finally signing the complete sentence, "My name is Jasman" :)

Question? - Double Letters


One of the questions that came from learning the alphabet was, how do I sign double letters? For example, pizza has two z's, how would I sign it such that the person I am signing to knows that I am signing two z's rather than just one. I found the answer to this from a YouTube Video, by ASL Rochelle. 


In the video Rochelle recommends three ways of signing to represent double letters:
  1. Slide Method
  2. Tap Method
  3. Arch Method
The method of sliding if you are right handed you would slide your hand to the right and if left handed slide your hand to the left. The tap method, is where you would tap the finger while you are signing. This is recommended for letters where your fingers are touching or in contact with one another (example "K"). In the arch method, you are performing an arch shape while signing. Similar to the slide method, you would arch to the left if you are left handed and to the right if you are right handed. The letters "J" and "Z" are the only exceptions to this method. For "J" you would sign "J" slide and then sign "J" again, similar to the slide method except you are signing "J" twice. For "Z" you would have your index finger and middle finger curved and sign "Z".

My Goal for this week

This week I set a goal to learn a 100 new sign words, specifically signs that I would use in my daily life. For this I referred to Bill Vicars First 100 Signs video. In this video he goes over signs but he does this according to category. I found this to be very helpful, as some of the signs would build off one another, and this helps with the memorization process. At the end of each category he would quiz you on the signs. This I obviously found to be very helpful, as sometimes I would think I know the sign but when I was tested I had completely forgotten it. This allowed me to pay more attention (and practice) to the signs that I kept on forgetting. 

Most and least favourite sign of the week

My favourite sign that I learned was "finish", it's a sign that I could see myself using in the future in a conversation. The signs that I struggled memorizing was the colors category. I found the signs to be random and might have to stick to finger spelling the colors.


The categories in the First 100 Signs video:
  • Family
  • Places
  • Time
  • Temperature
  • Food
  • Clothes
  • Health
  • Feelings
  • Requests
  • Amounts
  • Colors
  • Money
  • Animals

Signs in action
On the left is the sign for "mother" and on the right is the sign for "father". "Grandma" is more of an exaggerated version of "mother" and "grandfather" is a more exaggerated version of "father". The sign for "parents" (below) combines the sign for "mother" and "father". 


Research

Last week, I questioned whether it was okay to use "sign" and "gesture" interchangeably and this week I looked into the answer. 
I could not find a direct answer to this question, but I did find websites and YouTube videos that provided some insight. Both signs and gestures involve the use of the hands, but there are differences. 

A sign is like a speech and is used in place of speaking
A gesture is used mostly while speaking

Gestures can be used in everyday conversation for people with hearing. I know for me personally, when I am speaking I express myself a lot with my hands. On the other hand, signs are distinct hand motions and facial expressions that are used in place of speaking. My understanding from the resources is that the gesture would be considered more of a silent gesture as you are not speaking while you gesture. Therefore, from now on I will just stick to the term sign, and not use sign and gesture interchangeably. 

Next week

For week six I plan to continue learning more words in sign language as well as start to communicate in sign language with longer sentences. I am currently able to communicate in short sentences, but by trying to communicate in longer sentences it will allow me to know:
  1. Which words I still need to learn
  2. Familiarize myself with the sentence structures
  3. Practice, practice, and practice
  4. Allow my hands to have a more natural feel when I am signing

Check this out


Till next week!!

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