ASL - sometimes I'm speechless

[lavengro]

I’ve started poking around at learning ASL recently, trying to spend 15 to 20 minutes per day at it, mostly through Dr. Bill Vicars’ excellent site: https://www.lifeprint.com/index.htm

I had learned the ASL manual alphabet (fingerspelled alphabet) years ago, though never how to fingerspell quickly. It came back pretty easily with just a bit of reference for some of the tricky letters. I have been practising recognition of fingerspelled words daily via Vicars’ http://asl.ms/ - I started with three letter words signed at a “slow” rate of speed, then 3 letter words at medium speed, then 4 letter words at slow and currently 4 letter words at medium. The rates of speed extend to “fast” and “Deaf” and up to words of unlimited letter length.

I am working slowly and repetitively at the video lessons at https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/lessons/lessons.htm. I am still on video lesson #1. The lessons appear to assume that one already knows how to fingerspell, though there is only a little fingerspelling involved at least in the first lesson.

[lavengro]

Lesson 1 - https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/lessons/lesson01.htm – I found the first 44 minute video to be pretty easy to follow and I appreciate that it builds in lots of repetition and review. I would recommend also working through the non-video stuff on the page, which provides additional learning material.

[Lianne]

I started the same course back in the spring! Unfortunately I fell out of the habit, partly due to a weird pain in my finger that seemed not to go well with ASL, lol. I am hoping to get back into it, though.

What I liked to do was read all the content for a lesson first, learning all the signs from the gifs, then the practice sentences, etc. Then I watched the video, which reinforced everything I'd just learned and gave me some repetition. I only got through the first few lessons but that approach seemed to work well.

I look forward to following your progress! Perhaps it will motivate me, too.

[lavengro]

Thanks Lianne, sorry to hear about the finger pain. I am a bit worried for myself in that regard concerning my dominant hand little finger due to a years ago injury, but so far it has been okay.

I will give your approach a try - to this point I have just jumped into the videos and replaying as necessary.

Regarding re-engaging your own motivation, no one should ever look to any of my logs for motivation in language learning, though I understand my logs are recommended reading at the local zoo for any over-active two-toed or three-toed sloths who may need tips on how to go through life more slowly.

In terms of my motivation, at present it is based entirely on wanting to figure out how the following date between two of my favourite people went:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3fKztW6ZyI

[Lianne]

Regarding re-engaging your own motivation, no one should ever look to any of my logs for motivation in language learning, though I understand my logs are recommended reading at the local zoo for any over-active two-toed or three-toed sloths who may need tips on how to go through life more slowly.

This literally made me laugh out loud. Hey, slow and steady wins the race! Better than my history of short periods of intense focus surrounded by long periods of total inaction! That's gotten me nowhere fast. Thankfully I seem to be escaping that pattern, at least where language learning is concerned. *crosses fingers*

[lavengro]

Finished lesson 2 including practice quizzes for lessons 1 and 2 (http://asl.gs/quizzes-practice/index.htm).

Fingerspelling recognition now at 6 letters at medium speed on the asl.ms site. I can usually get the fingerspelled word with one or two tries at this speed, but it gets really tiring after a few minutes.

I am usually not a fan of companies prying into one's personal life, but I can definitely get behind this project in Turkey, very nice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyk0CxjNYyw

[lavengro]

Finished lesson 3. I found this one to be less polished than the first two and sometimes Vicars seemed to forget his audience (in terms of communicating with his student, who clearly already knew more than the student in lesson 1 and 2, and in terms of facing her rather than the camera for some signing). As a result, this was more challenging than the first one, and really benefited from studying the signs in advance of working through the video.

Still engaging in a few minutes each day of fingerspelling recognition - still at medium speed for 6 letters (ie. words up to and including six letters).

[lavengro]

Watched Abed's ASL video confession about detonating mollusks (warning: contains huge "Bloodlines of Conquest" spoilers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4u9hGQeOQ

[lavengro]

Finished lesson 4 of the Lifeprints materials - found this lesson to be harder than the previous lessons.

Delighted to have learned that there are Memrise/Decks ASL courses: https://decks.memrise.com/courses/english/?q=asl

How to get someone to give you greasy food via ASL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaPoZT-baNk