Category: Podcast

Merry Christmas from LearnSigns.com!

Along with teaching sign language and interpreting, part of my ministry or job is I am a missionary to the Deaf. And, so here are some pictures of a recent trip I took to Ethiopia.

These pictures were taken just before Christmas 2012. I was there 2 and 1/2 weeks. And I visited some deaf schools and a couple of deaf churches.

And so here are some pictures. The children you see in the vide… or the pictures here are all deaf children, with the exception of just a couple of them. The lady I stayed with, she’s a deaf lady, but then she has a hearing child. But for the most part these are all deaf children and the adults you see are either pastors, deaf churches, teachers in deaf schools. Or, they are deaf folks at the churches or schools. So here are just some pictures of my trip to Ethiopia. I was there 2 and 1/2 weeks and had a wonderful time. And glad to be back home though. So these are pictures from that trip.

I will be back later with another video. Of just our normal sign language video. But for now, enjoy these pictures and some of the sights and things I saw while I was in Ethiopia.

LearnSigns.com Lesson Number 21

We are going to talk about adjectives in this lesson. And there will be adjectives along the way. Any kind of describing words, we are going to have several of those. But here is a lesson, or a set of words that are just adjectives. And some basic ones.

This first one will look somewhat familiar. Remember this word is PLAY, PLAY. And SILLY is right here in front of the face instead of off to the side like PLAY, SILLY is right in front of the face. We talked about that before when we talked about PLAY. PLAY can be done with one or two hands, most often with two. And then SILLY is just one hand and it is right here. It twists back and forth. It is your Y hand, twisting around in a circle.

FOOLISH is similar except it is just a single motion. FOOLISH. You start with your palm facing toward you and then you twist it so that your palm is out. Come from top to bottom. Or, it is a diagonal. It is not really left, right, up or down. It is a diagonal. FOOLISH FOOLISH It is kind of a strong word. FOOLISH. So it is just a single sign going across there.

WISE

WISE – You take your X and it is like you are hanging it on a hook right here on your forehead. WISE WISE

SMART

SMART – Take your sensitive finger: so it is your 5 with your middle finger pulled down. You are going to touch right here in the middle of your forehead and you turn it out. SMART SMART

This is the word SHARP, and I think it comes from the word SHARP. SHARP as in a knife being SHARP. Now SHARP mentally is SMART.

HARD – Take your Vs and then you bend them down so you have your snake fingers and then you smash them together. HARD. Or you will also see it done back here more towards the wrist area. You hit the fingers together or the wrist area together. HARD or HARD.

SOFT – This one makes sense. SOFT. Like you are squeezing something SOFT.

SLOW – This is your B, or your mitten hand, is going to pull back over your other hand SLOWLY. SLOW. It goes from away from you to towards you. And the bottom hand is just sitting there. SLOW

FAST – It is like you are shooting marbles. FAST. Take and have your marble in your finger and fling it out there. Or, you will also see FAST done like this. FAST. QUICK or FAST, both of them are the same sign. FAST or QUICK. And then this is like we did the word RUN, when we talked about verbs, RUN. You are going to do that except you are going to unhook your fingers and then just pull back like you are shooting a couple of guns. FAST or QUICK

UGLY

UGLY – This is the letter X and you are going to pull it across the face. You draw it across the face. UGLY. Now this is used more for the appearance of things. The way things look. It looks UGLY. The person, the car an item, whatever is UGLY in appearance. It is not so much used for an action that is UGLY, or an attitude that is UGLY. Sometimes it is, but primarily it is a word describing physical features of what something looks like. UGLY

PRETTY

PRETTY – You take your 5 with your palm facing toward you and you are going to come across the face and then bring all your fingers together. PRETTY. The face is arranged nicely.

And then BEAUTIFUL is you do that and then you splash back. BEAUTIFUL. So arranged nicely and splashes back. Ah, that is BEAUTIFUL. BEAUTIFUL

YOUNG

YOUNG – Remember the word HAVE, to POSSESS, to HAVE. This is the same sign except now it has a motion that rotates up. YOUNG

OLD

You are showing the long beard of the OLD goat. OLD. You just take and you are going to – make like the letter S. OLD. Showing the beard.

AWAKE

AWAKE – This is also the word SURPRISE, AMAZE, ASTONISHED. AWAKE. Facial expression and context will tell you which one of those it is. If you are talking about a boy trying to get up in the morning. Then he is probably not SURPRISED, he is getting AWAKE. So context will help you know which one it is talking about.

ASLEEP

ASLEEP – This is your 5 hand and it is like the word PRETTY, except instead of coming around in a circle it comes straight down. It goes from 5 to where all your fingers are together. And I close my eyes and bow my head slightly when I do it. ASLEEP.

ASLEEP – I want to SLEEP.

Ok. Let’s go through those again.

SILLY

FOOLISH

WISE

SMART

HARD or HARD

SOFT

SLOW

FAST or FAST. It is also the word QUICK.

FAST or QUICK

UGLY

PRETTY, PRETTY

BEAUTIFUL, oh, that is BEAUTIFUL

YOUNG

OLD

AWAKE

and

ASLEEP

This is LearnSigns.com lesson 21. So you can go to LearnSigns.com/21. That will get you to this lesson. It will have a list of the vocabulary words there. So that you can read those. Also there will be some other posts in there talking about grammar and how to use these signs.

Make sure you visit the website LearnSigns.com.

Thanks for watching!

LearnSigns.com Lesson Number 20

We are going to talk more about feeling words.

FEELINGS

We talked about these before in an earlier lesson so you can look at those if you haven’t. And then you can get all the feeling words that I have done so far.

EMOTION

EMOTION – This is like the word EXCITED that we have done before. It is with your sensitive fingers is EXCITED. Now EMOTION is with the letter E.

EXPRESSION

EXPRESSION – Now this is talking about facial EXPRESSION. Not about a sentence or phrase or an expression, a way to say something. It is not that. This is facial EXPRESSION. And it is your letter X. I do it with my thumbs inside there.

EXPRESSION

UPSET – Oh, I don’t like that. I am UPSET. This is like the word FEEL except now it is with the P. And you bring it up and then you turn it with your palm up. So your palm is down and it becomes up.

UPSET

EAGER

EAGER – Excited to do something. You are EAGER.

JEALOUS

JEALOUS – You just draw a J right here on the corner of your mouth. JEALOUS

LAZY

Or your will also see it done LAZY like this where it just slides down. Remember this word is LORD. We talked about CHRIST, LORD, KING when we talked about religious words. So LORD is where it comes out more. And then LAZY, if you do it this way, it just slides down the body. Or, I do it LAZY like this so that it is clearer. There is a bigger distinction between the two.

*sigh* TIRED

TIRED – Just roll your hands down.

TIRED

LONELY – Oh, I am so LONELY. And this is the feeling of LONELY. This is the word ALONE as in a single item, ALONE. Or a person is alone. But this is LONELY like the feeling.

LONELY

GUILTY – It is the letter G or Q and you’re tapping the heart. You feel GUILTY. Ooo, done something wrong.

EMBARRASSED

EMBARRASSED – There are a couple of different ways to do this one. EMBARRASS is like your claws. Or you can do EMBARRASS like this. You are showing the red face, as it turns red.

EMBARRASS or ASHAMED

CONFUSED – Again with your claw hands and you are going to scramble up your mind. CONFUSED

OK? Those are FEELINGS. Let’s go through them again.

EMOTION

EXPRESSION – Good facial expression.

UPSET

EAGER

JEALOUS

LAZY or LAZY

TIRED

LONELY LONELY

ALONE

GUILTY

EMBARRASSED – Oh, I feel so EMBARRASSED

Or, EMBARRASSED – And you can do it with one hand.

And then, CONFUSED. CONFUSED

This is LearnSigns.com lesson 20. So you can go to the website and get the list of the vocabulary that we covered in this lesson.

LearnSigns.com/20

Thanks for watching.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 18. In this lesson we are going to talk about verb tenses.

Now if you have learned another foreign language then you probably have experienced that there are lots of verbs. There are lots of times: future, past and all of that. In English we have all of that too, but we just don’t think of them that way. We don’t think of the complication that verbs can cause when you are trying to learn a new language. Many languages, as does English, again we just don’t think about it, have modifiers or things that make the verb either simple past or an action that is completed in the past or an action that started in the past but continues to the current time. So there are lots of different simple past tense and then present and future tenses as well. Well, you will be very happy to know that in sign language, generally, we talk about three tenses: past, present and future. And it’s really that simple.

Now most of the time context will tell you whether the action is in the past. A couple of lessons ago you learned several verbs, basic verbs. And you can put those verbs in the past or in the present or in the future when necessary. But context, like I said, context generally takes care of that. So you don’t have to, before every verb say, “in the past I did this.” You can just say, if you are talking about a story, let’s say something that happened last Christmas. Then every thing that is said is understood to be past tense. And therefore you don’t have to modify each verb so that it tells you that it is past tense. Like you would in a spoken language.

So past tense is controlled by context. Same way with present tense. If you are talking about something that will happen in the future, then that is also dictated by context as to how the verbs would be spoken, if you needed to speak them. But, typically with sign language you read what the person is saying and you know that it is future, past or present. Now if you are actually having to voice the verbs, voice the words, then you would need to definitely know exactly what is the English the word for that. But that comes naturally for those of us who speak English as our native language.

So there are only three basic tenses, or three tenses in sign language: past, present and future. And context dictates, for the most part, what you are going to do.

Now when you do need to distinguish whether this is something that happened in the past or in the future, then you can do your simple modifier, your sign. This is PAST, or BEFORE. In the PAST. And then PRESENT, if you need to do anything at all, you can do NOW, or you will also see it like this, NOW. I showed you both ways when we did that. NOW or PRESENT. And then FUTURE you take and you touch the side of your face and you push forward. FUTURE. And this is with your, with your…the end of your hand, the edge of your hand pushing forward. Where past tense you have your palm facing backward. If you are right-handed then when you do FUTURE your palm is going face to the left. Or if you are left-handed your palm will face to the right. So this is…you don’t push forward with your palm. You push forward with the side of your hand. So that is PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.

So for example, if I wanted to say, “last year on my birthday,” I could say, “LAST, or in the PAST” and then the sign for BIRTHDAY. BIRTHDAY or whatever the sign is for BIRTHDAY in your area. That is one of the signs that changes quite a bit. But I can say, “last birthday, I ate.” I don’t have to say, “I A-T-E, this is the sign EAT, so A-T-E is a another sign.” It is not a different sign it is the same sign. So last birthday I ate cake, or cake, however you do cake.

It is just that simple for doing your verbs. So past tense you just put it in the past if it is necessary to say that and then you have your past tense verbs. Present you’ve got your present tense verbs. And then future for your future tense verbs.

You don’t have to say every time. “I WILL go to the store. I WILL eat lunch. I WILL take a nap.” If you are talking about things that are going to happen later today. You can say, “Today, I WILL go store. I WILL eat lunch. I WILL take a nap.” Again, I don’t have to modify every one of those future tenses with the WILL. You can, but it is also very simple if the context is already been set up that the future tenses, that you are talking about, the future. Then you don’t have to do all of that.

So think of tenses—past, present and future as being very simple in sign language. Now, I don’t mean to say it is simplistic. You can convey so much of what you say in English. You can convey it in sign language as well. It is just is done in a different way. And so when you are thinking about how do I put together a sentence and everything—context tells you most of the time what the verbs are. Past, present or future. And then if you do need to modify it you can modify it with PAST or BEFORE, PRESENT / NOW or FUTURE.

This is just a simple lesson on how to use those verbs that we learned just a couple of lessons ago. So it is LearnSigns.com/18.

I am also going to talk about some sentence structure in some upcoming lesson. And it would be helpful for you if you did some reading on sentence structure and how that is laid out. I am going to write some posts at LearnSigns.com that you can read. So occasionally when you are checking these videos go to the website and see what else I have written in there that will help you with your grammar, your sentence structure. And I will have those posts up there periodically between videos. Because they are not so visual. They are easy to read and probably easier to comprehend and digest. And then I can talk about those in a video as well.

Thanks for watching. This is LearnSigns.com/18.