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Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 15.

In this lesson I am going to talk about house words. HOUSE.

This is the word HOME. HOME. And there is kind of the distinction in sign language that there is in spoken English. HOUSE would be the place and then HOME would be more the family. That idea. So, HOUSE you draw the roof and the walls. And then HOME. It is the place where you eat and sleep. That is the way you can think of it. You take all of your fingertips together and and you will show like you are eating. And then you put your hand up here by your temple. Eat and sleep. HOUSE. HOUSE and HOME.

DOOR

DOOR – You take and have one hand stationary and the other hand opens and closes. DOOR. You could say, “open the DOOR and close the DOOR.”

WINDOW

WINDOW – The same thing. You have one hand is stationary and the other hand shows the WINDOW sliding open and then closed.

CHAIR

CHAIR – This is your two little legs hanging off the edge of the CHAIR. CHAIR. There are variants of this. You could do SOFA. Or LOVE SEAT for two people. CHAIR.

Now, SIT is the same sign. We will talk more about the distinction between nouns and verbs. But when it is the exact same sign then you can distinguish between nouns and verbs by doing the verb once, SIT. It is more like a single action SIT. And then CHAIR has a little bit of a bounce. However, many times you don’t need to make a distinction because where we might say in English, “sit in the CHAIR.” The truth is if you tell somebody to sit and you are pointing to something, then it doesn’t make any sense to say, “in the CHAIR.” You can just say SIT. Right there. And if there is a CHAIR there, then that is where they SIT. If it is a rock, then that is where they SIT. So you don’t have to make that distinction. Now when you do have a noun and a verb that has the same sign then the verb is a single action and the noun has a little bit of a bounce to it.

SIT and CHAIR

TABLE

TABLE – It is just take like your “I Dream of Genie” hands. TABLE. Drop it down. WINDOW is with the palms towards you. WINDOW. And TABLE is with your palms down.

BED

BED – Take your Bs or your mitten hands and you put them side by side like you are sleeping. BED. BED.

SHOWER

SHOWER – Remember this is SUN. You do a circle and then you do the SUN onto yourself. It can also be used for GRACE. We talked about that. GRACE is towards you and SUN would be more out. SUN.

But this is where it kind of pulses in and out. SHOWER SHOWER

BATHE – Take your A-hands and you are going to bathe. You are going to rub. Either alternating or together. BATHE. Either one of those.

BATHROOM – Two signs for BATHROOM. You can do BATHROOM with RR which is RESTROOM. BATHROOM. Or you shake the letter T. BATHROOM

BATHROOM or BATHROOM. Either one.

LIGHT – This also has a couple of different signs. You take your…your 8 and you are going to flick the middle finger up. And you are going to do it right at your chin. LIGHT. LIGHT.

That is one sign for it. Another is to take and do a light towards yourself. Kind of like SUN has a circle and goes out. LIGHT is above you and the LIGHT comes down. LIGHT. Or LIGHT. Either one.

Alright, so let’s go through those again.

• HOUSE
• HOME
• DOOR
• WINDOW
• CHAIR
• TABLE
• BED
• SHOWER
• BATHE
• BATHROOM or BATHROOM
• LIGHT or LIGHT

Now, in lesson number 11 I talked about something, the 5 different elements. Something you could do to write down signs is to list the 5 different elements of shape, location, movement, orientation and non-manual elements like the way you move your mouth, head tilt, shoulder shrug and different things. So those are the 5 different elements. I came across a book this last week that has lists of words and then it had a chart on there of the 5 different elements.

Let me show that to you. I picked this up at a college that I was teaching class at last week. And what the teacher has done and taken and given the word list, the vocabulary list along with spaces to write in the 5 elements of each sign. So what I am going to do is I will have a page made up like this. Not with vocabulary words on there, but with a blank space. And then have this so you can download it at LearnSigns.com/15. And you can get this piece of paper that you can then write in your shape, orientation, location, movement and then the non-manual elements. So that chart I will have available for you at LearnSigns.com/15.

This is LearnSigns.com/15. I want to encourage you to keep learning your vocabulary. In the next couple of lessons we will do more vocabulary and I am going to talk about things that are more sign language grammar related. So we will get into more of the usage of sign language. And I think you will enjoy that.

LearnSigns.com/15. Thank you for watching.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com. Lesson number 14.

I want to talk about pronouns. Pronouns, of course you know, are words that take the place of nouns. Before we can discuss pronouns themselves, we also need to talk about nouns. Or, particularly, names. And, pronouns are going to take the place of nouns and I am talking about people in this. There is not really a pronoun for IT, so we are talking about people here.

So, with sign names, or with a person’s name, you can spell your name. Like my name is DAVID. And I have a sign name which is David. And each person can make up your own sign name. Or the sign name can be give to you by your deaf friends. And typically what will happen is your sign name will have something to do with a physical characteristic you have or using one of your initials. And sometimes a combination of both.

For example, I have a friend Francisco. He has big ears. So his sign name is the letter F just touching his ear. Sometimes you will see somebody who has a mole. And so their sign name might be touching the spot where the mole is. My sign name is David with the D. It is something you just make up on your own. It doesn’t have to be anything special or have any kind of meaning. One fellow I met recently his sign name is Phil with the P right there on the chin. All kinds of ways that you can do sign names.

So a sign name in essence is a pronoun because you can use that sign to mean the person that you are talking about. So you have sign names to take the place of a proper noun, of the person’s name. But then you can also use what we would call a typical pronoun.

So pronouns kind of have a way that they work. A system. And so here is the basic system.

If you just use your pointer finger and point to the other person you are saying YOU. YOU. YOU need to do this…or whatever.

I can point to me, point to myself and it would be ME. Now, if I am talking about a person that is standing here to my side, I can say HIM or HER. And it is obvious who I am talking about because we are all right here. I can see YOU. YOU can see ME and we both can see HIM. So we use our pointer finger, our index finger to indicate who we are talking about.

It is also possible that the person is not there. I can talk about my brother and I can say, my brother. And I am going to put him here. I am going to use this gesture. Or you can do the little person and say my brother and point to him. Now when I talk about him in the story I can just point…HE said this. HE did that. So you can use, even if a person is not physically present, you can use the indicating finger to show who or where the person or thing is.

Then you have the collective, WE, US. You can do that a couple of different ways. The W and you are saying, WE. And essentially what you are doing is pointing to yourself and you are including all the other people around. US with the U. US. Now, you also see it like this, and this is the way I personally do it. I point to myself and then I point to all of you and then back to myself. WE or US.

The same way with ME and I. I talk about myself, I or ME. You will see sometimes it will be done with an I like this and ME like this. I do them both by pointing to myself. They mean the same thing in grammar. Now, not English grammar. I know English grammar says I and ME are different, but in sign language grammar they are essentially the same thing. ME

I can point to myself and to YOU and to US. I can talk about THEM, those people over there. I can talk about YOU plural with my index finger. So your index finger is showing the basic simple pronoun.

Now, if you want to show possessive you use the open palm. You can say MY. MY book. YOUR car. And you are using the open palm to show possession. I can talk about HER. HER dog. And then if I wanted to talk about my brother that is standing there, HIS. HIS family. OK?

So you are using the open palm to show possession. So, how would we do OURS? OURS – Just start here on your side and you are going to include all the people using the open palm and include all the people. OURS

YOURS as in plural. YOURS

THEIRS – Those people over there. It is THEIR classroom.

So the open palm shows possession and the index finger shows basic, indicating who the person is. YOU, ME, HIM (that is standing right here), HIM that’s far away and we’ve set him up in the story. So you can use pronouns so you don’t have to use the person’s name over and over.

Now, if you do know the sign name, then of course you want to make sure all of this is clear. So use the person’s sign name that you are talking about. Use whatever you can. If the person is physically there it is so much easier to point to them or point to YOU. So use—make sure it is clear. That’s the big thing. You need to be clear in your meaning and in your signs. So whatever it is, whether it is using pronouns, sign names, or just basic words, you want to be clear in your signing.

OK? So that is your pronouns. Just a real simple lesson on how to use pronouns. This is LearnSigns.com/14. If you will go to the website, LearnSigns.com, and then put a slash and then just the number of the lesson you are looking for and you will bring the lesson up.

Thank you for watching.

Welcome to LearnSigns.com. Lesson number 13.

My office in the basement of the house is being worked on right now, so I decided to do the video from outside the house. And, it is not too cold yet. Also, I am going to be talking about NATURE. NATURAL things in this video.

NATURE, NATURAL this is also the sign for NORMAL. You take the N, or it is a modified N—really the letter U. And you give it a little wiggle and this is more to say, “Hey, I am about to do something here.” Then you drop it down. Sometimes you will see it from underneath or above it. But just a little movement to show that this hand is about to do something. NATURE

TREE – You have your horizon and then your TREE is on the horizon. It wiggles. You can do several TREES. Give it a movement there. TREES

FLOWER – It’s all your fingertips are together and you are going to touch one side of your nose and you go to the other side. FLOWER

SUN – You draw a circle and then you show the sun shine. Shining down. SUN

MOON – Can be done a couple of different ways. The way I like to do it is what I call the little C. It is the C made with just the thumb and index finger. You put it right here by your eye. MOON. Sometimes you will see it done with the big C. But then, some people use this to mean SUN. So the biggest separation, for distinction purposes, is to do SUN like this. And then MOON with just the index finger and the thumb. MOON. SUN. MOON.

STARS

STAR – It is your Gs and you are going to bump them together as you rub up. STAR

EARTH or WORLD

This is EARTH. You take your thumb and your sensitive finger and you are going to pinch your wrist and you give it a little wiggle. EARTH EARTH

WORLD – Is with the Ws. And you do just like you do YEAR, but you do it with the Ws. WORLD

EARTH and WORLD

DIRT – Take your, like you would do the word money. This is not the real sign for money. But this is what we call a natural sign—the way people do it. Money. Now you do it with both hands with your palms up. DIRT. DIRT. You can take and do that and spread it out on the GROUND and that would be LAND or a piece of PROPERTY. So, DIRT, or EARTH meaning DIRT or SOIL. Then you spread it out and that would mean LAND or PROPERTY.

RAIN – Comes down. And it comes down kind of in sheets. SNOW is a little different. It is softer. You can do RAIN it is hard. Windy and RAINY.

SNOW – You take and you touch your shoulders and then you flick it off and drift it down. You can make it pretty. And the way I think of it is you are brushing off the dandruff and it flakes down. SNOW

RAINBOW – This is the sign for COLOR. You take your 5 and you wiggle it right there by your lips. And then you do the bow. COLOR and then the RAINBOW. Now you can just do this, RAINBOW. It is like with your 5 or your 4. You can do this and that it is sufficient if in context it is understood. But if you do the whole thing, COLOR and then RAINBOW then it is very clear as to what you mean.

ANIMAL – Take your B-hands or your mitten hands and you put them right here on your shoulders. And you wiggle in and out. It is like the lungs are expanding and contracting. ANIMAL. That is the generic sign for ANIMAL. There are lots of ANIMAL signs. I will do a video about just ANIMAL signs later. But this is ANIMAL in general.

Alright, so lets go through those again.

NATURE, NATURAL, NORMAL

TREE

FLOWER

SUN

MOON

STAR

EARTH

WORLD

DIRT – This is also LAND or PROPERTY if you do it out like that. So, DIRT or EARTH meaning SOIL, LAND or PROPERTY

RAIN

SNOW

RAINBOW

ANIMAL

Alright, and I have a project for you. The word GRASS, which is a NATURE sign. The word GRASS is a sign that changes around the United States. Different regions have different signs for it. So your assignment is to find out how GRASS is used in your area. What the sign for it is. Many places just spell it. But I want you to see if you can find a sign for the word GRASS and then in the comments of lesson 13, LearnSigns.com/13, if you will write out the description of GRASS using the information you learned from lesson 11 which gives you the 5 different elements for how to write out a sign. Use that information and write for us how GRASS is done in your area and we can see different ways GRASS is done. Tell us where you are from and the way you do GRASS in your area. Or, the way the Deaf do GRASS in your area.

Thank you for watching. This is LearnSigns.com lesson 13. So, LearnSigns.com/13.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 12.

In this lesson we are going to talk about church signs. Church signs. These are words that you would use in church. Now, some church words are used differently in different types of churches. Depending on the denomination or the type of church. And, so what I am going to teach you is what we use in our churches. But this is not necessarily the way it is done in every church. And, even among—I am a baptist—even among Baptist churches, the signs can be different from one church to another. So, these are not…most of these are absolute. There is a way to do them. But there are some of these signs, and I will show you that, that very even among just people that I know and then into other churches. So just be aware of that and be careful when you are doing signs in church or when you are talking about church-type words. Just be aware that there are different ways to do it. And it’s OK to learn another way to do it. That is perfectly fine. The way I am teaching you is the way I do it and the way the folks I hang around do sign language. But you may be learning signs from a different region and the Deaf will do it a different way. That is perfectly fine. Learn from them. What I want to give you is the basics to be able to communicate, but certainly you can learn much more vocabulary by just interacting with your friends.

Alright? So let’s get into this.

As we start talking about these first few words we have the word GOD and JESUS and CHRIST. These signs, while they don’t mean anything to you right now, they are just hand gestures, they do mean something to us. So…like you would respect the name of God in spoken English, you should do so in sign language as well. So you doing God’s name in an irreverent or flippant way in sign language can be offensive to people. Even though to you it is just a hand shape or hand movement. So be aware of that whenever you do these signs.

GOD GOD

GOD – I do it where I take my B-hand is out here in front and it kind of comes back towards me and down. Sometimes you will see it done where it comes from the side and comes down. That’s fine. But the idea is that GOD comes down to us. GOD

JESUS

JESUS – You are going to use your sensitive fingers. So you take your 5s and you bend your middle fingers in and you are going to touch the palms of your hands. JESUS. JESUS – show the nail prints in the hands.

CHRIST

CHRIST – This is the letter C, and if you are right handed you are going to place it on your left shoulder. And then you come down to your left hip. CHRIST. And this is based on the word KING. You do the same thing with the letter K. Right-handed put your K on your left shoulder and then bring it down to your right hip. If you are left-handed your KING starts on your right shoulder, your opposite shoulder, and then down to your left hip: the same side. Now the word CHRIST is with the letter C.

HOLY SPIRIT

HOLY SPIRIT – This is the word HOLY, and this is one of those you will see done a couple of different ways. I do a little circle and then CLEAN. Or you will see it as the H drawn across the palette, like you are doing 1 WEEK or 2 WEEKS. So this is HOLY or HOLY (like CLEAN). And then SPIRIT, SPIRIT is the numbers 5-8 on both hands. SPIRIT. HOLY SPIRIT. HOLY SPIRIT.

BIBLE – This is JESUS’ BOOK. JESUS’ BOOK. JESUS BOOK is BIBLE.

CHURCH

CHURCH – Take your letter C and you’re going to put it on the rock. “On this rock I will build my church.” CHURCH is the C on the rock.

SIN

SIN – I don’t really have an explanation for this sign. I don’t understand why we do it this way, but we do. It is the letters X, so you have both of your Xes. You are going to start right here at your chin and it comes back slightly. Back and then goes out in a circle. SIN – And you do this once or twice for the word SIN. SIN

GRACE

GRACE – There are many different ways to do the sign for GRACE. Here are the two that I use. Take the cup and put it over your heart. And then the letter G you are going to pull it out and kind of splash it back. GRACE. GRACE. Another way I do GRACE is, it is the letter G again. You are going to draw a small sun and then splash it onto yourself. GRACE GRACE – God’s GRACE is given to us. GRACE

MERCY

MERCY – This is your sensitives fingers. You are going to touch your chest like at your heart area. You rub down and then you come out and you spread the MERCY on the other person. MERCY. Again your sensitive fingers. You touch your chest at your heart area and then you put the MERCY out there. This is also the word to PITY. To PITY someone. It can be used sarcastically, “Aww, you POOR BABY.” POOR BABY. MERCY.

HEAVEN HEAVEN

HEAVEN – You will see this done many different ways as well, but the idea is that you kinda build up to something up there higher. Then you put a roof on it. Or, sometimes you will just see it straight across. The way I do it is that I have my horizon. I am going to go beyond the horizon and build a house. HEAVEN HEAVEN

HELL – Now this is the word HELL as in the place, not the curse word HELL. I am not going to teach you that one. Alright. HELL. You can do it a couple of different ways. One is to do red and then fire. HELL. Or, the other is to point down forcibly, point down forcibly and then do fire. HELL. Again this is the place.

PUNISH

PUNISH – You take your fist here and the idea is you’ve got a person, got his legs sticking out there, being held by the neck and you are beating him. PUNISH. PUNISH. You take and whack the person. The little person’s legs hanging out and you whack him. It is just this right here PUNISH. PUNISH.

REPENT

REPENT – I haven’t taught you the word yet for CHANGE, but CHANGE is the X. X on both hands, and you are going to put the base of your palms together. Right there at the wrist. One palm facing you and the other palm facing away from you. Now you rotate your palms around so that the one that was facing away from you is now facing you and vice versa. CHANGE. That is with the X. CHANGE.

Now there are several different meanings for the word CHANGE. We will deal with that later. This is the word CHANGE. Now, if you do it with the Rs that is the word REPENT. To CHANGE your mind or CHANGE your ways.

Alright. So these are church words. Let me go through them again for you.

GOD

JESUS

CHRIST

HOLY SPIRIT

BIBLE

CHURCH

SIN

GRACE or GRACE

MERCY

HEAVEN

HELL or HELL

PUNISH

REPENT REPENT

Alright. Now these are words related to what we talk about church often. I will do a video later of words that are religious words. Different religions, different denominations. So I will give you a video on just those types of words as well. There are many words that seem to be very focused to church ministry, to worship and those kinds of things. We may do several videos that are specific to that. But here are your basic church words that you will want to know.

You can find information about these words at LearnSigns.com/12. This is lesson 12, so you do LearnSigns.com/12. If you want to watch the videos with the captioning on them, I have the closed captioning on the YouTube version of the videos which is embedded at the website at LearnSigns.com. So if you are having trouble, if you are hard of hearing and learning signs and having trouble reading my lips. Then you can get the captions at YouTube or at LearnSigns.com in the video that is embedded there. Thank you for watching. I look forward to having you in the next lesson.