LearnSigns

LearnSigns 26: Preposition Usage

Post author By david
Post date February 17, 2013
1 Comment on LearnSigns 26: Preposition Usage

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:47 — 62.2MB) | Embed

In the last lesson we talked about how to sign various prepositions. In this lesson we talk about how to use those signs properly. You can get the list of vocabulary from the other lesson.

The main focus of this lesson is the word OF. It is used as an example word on how to handle prepositions and how to think through all words so that you can sign them properly. Your focus should be on the meaning of the words, not just the sign that we assign to the words.

View the episode transcript.

Hello! This is LearnSigns.com lesson number 26. Twenty-Six.

In this lesson we are going to talk more about prepositions. In the last lesson I gave you a list of prepositions. This lesson will explain some of them in a little more detail.

First of all, let’s go through some of these again and look at what the right sign is for these.

IN and OUT. OUTSIDE of. Those are pretty simple. Then IN is INTO. INSIDE.

WHILE, DURING or AS. I mentioned in the last lesson that WHILE, DURING and AS, these are words that talk about DURING this event, something else happened. So there may be other words besides those three that could use this sign. So try to think about what are the words meaning and then put the right sign to it. So WHILE, DURING or AS.

DURING the game last week someone got hurt. So, DURING. And this is WHILE something else is taking place.

And then we did SINCE. SINCE. You can also use this to mean UP TO NOW. From in the past TO NOW. Sometimes you will see it signed this way, where they will do SINCE and then come down to the Y signs. NOW, or NOW. You can do it either way. And this is UP TO NOW. From the past to today. Right now. SINCE or UP TO NOW.

ON, OVER, ABOVE, BELOW, BENEATH. We did those words.

WITH

WITH – This is the idea of two items. That can be two people or whatever. And it’s not just limited to two. It can be 15 items. So WITH. The idea is that it is a collection of things. Not just one thing. It will be two things together. Or, my car is WITH the MECHANIC. Or you can do MECHANIC. So it is not two things that are the same necessarily. It is just items that are together. WITH or TOGETHER.

Then, also this can be used to mean a boyfriend and girlfriend going out TOGETHER. You can do it back and forth like this. They are always WITH each other. Always TOGETHER. WITH, TOGETHER

WITHOUT

THROUGH

Now THROUGH has the idea of…of something is there and you are going to go THROUGH it. It can be metaphorical. I am going THROUGH a hard time right now. Or it can be physical. I am going to go THROUGH the door. Those…both of those are used. With sign language, typically, you are thinking of things that are real, physical things. But yet, you can also convey things that are not real. They are metaphorical. Or, they are simile, they are showing something that is not really real, like going THROUGH a hard time. Or this is…THROUGH this last week has been a great time for me. So you can use that THROUGH for those.

TO – I mentioned in the last lesson that this is movement from one place TO another place. You don’t use this for to eat, or to comb my hair. I guess I don’t do that anyway. But you don’t use this TO with your infinitive. And the infinitive is when you say a verb like to, whatever the verb is. To drive. You don’t use this sign TO for that. You just don’t use it at all. There is not a sign that you need to use for that construction. I want to GO… So I can say, I want to go and then I can say, TO the STORE. I WANT to DRIVE TO my FRIEND’S house. So to drive doesn’t use it, but going from here TO there does.

FROM

FOR

And then I also talked about the word OF. Those three words together. Many times the word OF means FROM. Or it means FOR. Or it can mean to REPRESENT. The word OF has many different meanings. So if you think of, this is the book OF John (we don’t say that so much in English), but that construction; book OF somebody. Then that is not FROM, it’s not FOR, it is BELONGS TO—and this is the sign BELONGS TO. You take two things and connect them together. You can say it belongs to John. OK, so the book OF John. It BELONGS to John. John’s book.

You can say, I am OF the state of Texas. FROM. Again, we don’t use that construction a whole lot, but that comes up. That is kind of an odd example. But, I am FROM, I am OF this world. FROM this world. So OF can mean FROM.

The Statue OF Liberty. What does OF mean there? You can say REPRESENTS. Or the Statue that SHOWS Liberty.

So the word OF, along with several other words, but that is one that has an easy example for us in the prepositions. The word OF has many different meanings and therefore you need to sign it based on the meaning. Not just O-F. You can say OF, but the meaning will be clearer if you will actually sign the sign that corresponds to that meaning. So try to think about that every time you hear the word OF, what does it mean? Then fit the sign for it.

And don’t just do that for the word OF. That is every word. Every word you hear…because sign language is not the same as English. It is a different language. And many times my spoken word corresponds to a sign that means that word, or what we would put together as a tag that says, OK this sign is that. But you need to think more, not just what the words say, but what do they mean and try to figure out every time you are listening to a word and you are interpreting or if you are just talking to you friends. You need to listen and think, what does this word mean? What is the base meaning for this word and sign that meaning?

So that is your word OF. It can mean FROM, BELONGS to, REPRESENTS, FOR. There are many many things that the word OF can mean there.

And then we talked about AROUND and ABOUT. Now this is also like you do it in English. You can talk ABOUT something AROUND physically: A camp fire. So you can say AROUND this way. But it is also used to talk ABOUT something. To talk AROUND a subject. To talk ABOUT this subject. So you can use AROUND and ABOUT that way.

And then the words UP and DOWN we covered in the last lesson. So this lesson is not so much new material on new signs and everything, but it gives a little bit more explanation of how to use those signs.

Every sign, and prepositions are good examples of this, every sign you need to think, what does this word mean? What does the spoken word mean that I am trying to convey and then convey that.

You also go the other direction. When a person is signing, they might sign something you say: Wow, I don’t know what the right English word for that is. Well, try to figure out what it means. What does the sign mean and then put the English word to it if necessary. Now, right now at your stage you are just trying to communicate and learn what people are saying and carry on conversations. But as time goes on and you get in the position of having to voice what your deaf friend is saying, then you want to be able to pull out what is the meaning of those signs and then put the English words to it. Because the English words may not correspond exactly with that particular sign, but it corresponds with the meaning of the sign.

Alright, so we call this…my friends and I when we are talking about this we say, think meaning. What does it mean? This is the sign for MEAN, by the way. Not MEAN as in ANGRY, but MEAN as in this word MEANS that. You take your V or your 2 and you poke it into your palm and then you give it a twist, you come off, twist it and poke it again. MEAN. So think MEANING. What does the word mean, and then sign that.

This is LearnSigns.com lesson 26. So you can go to LearnSigns.com/26 and get to this lesson.

I appreciate you watching. I know we had a couple of weeks there where there were not any videos. I was traveling. I am going to be doing some more traveling in the future. The format of the videos will probably change because of that. I won’t be at home for a few months. So if you see some changes there, bear with me. You probably like the changes, I don’t know. But the lessons will continue as much as I can over the transition time here. And then get back into a regular schedule as quickly as I can.

Thank you for watching.

Tags of, prepositions, usage

Podcast

LearnSigns 25: Prepositions

Post author By david
Post date February 10, 2013
2 Comments on LearnSigns 25: Prepositions

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:20 — 171.5MB) | Embed

This is a list of common prepositions. There is a big difference in just knowing the signs for the words and using the right sign for the meaning when it comes to prepositions. This lesson focuses on the signs while the next one is focused on the usage of those signs.

Vocabulary learned in this lesson:

In / Into / Inside
Out / Outside
While / During / As
Since / Up to now
On
Off
Over / Above
Under / Beneath / Below
With / Together
Without
Through
To
From
For
Of
Around / About
Up
Down

If you need the captions for the video, please click the Closed Caption [CC] button in the video player.

View the episode transcript.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 25.

In this lesson we are going to talk about prepositions. Now prepositions are those words that talk about position of things to other things. And some words don’t really seem like prepositions. I’ve always thought of prepositions as any relationship a bird can have to a cloud. Can be IN, OVER, UNDER. But there are other words that fall into prepositions. So we are going to talk about many of those in this lesson. And really all I am going to do is show you the sign this time around and not necessarily talk about the deep definitions of some of these words. Because some of them are somewhat complicated. So the next lesson, lesson number 26, I’ll will cover over what some of these words mean and how to use them properly. Because there can be multiple ways to sign the words depending on what the word means.

So lets go through the prepositions. And this certainly is not all the prepositions. There’s many more. But here are the ones that will be most common and easiest to learn. Alright?

IN – You have a cup and you are going to put something INSIDE the cup. This can be INSIDE, IN, INTO.

OUT – Same sign but you just pull it OUT.

OUT

So the motion going INTO it is IN. And then if you were to start here and go OUT. IN and OUT.

WHILE

WHILE – WHILE this was going on, we went to the store. DURING the movie someone screamed. This can also be AS. AS I was eating, my sister came to talk to me.

WHILE, DURING or AS. Now this is your index fingers pointing out and then your palms are up on both hands. You are going to point up, back towards yourself and then roll under and forward. WHILE, DURING or AS.

Now the opposite direction, where you start at the bottom and you come back towards yourself, up and out, this is SINCE. And the way to think of this is: in the past, SINCE then, UP TO NOW. So you are going to go from back to forward. SINCE

WHILE, DURING or AS goes from forward to back, or top to bottom. And then SINCE is from bottom to top. SINCE. SINCE I learned how to do this. So in the past, UP TO NOW. This is also the word UP TO NOW, SINCE.

ON – This is simple. ON. ON

And then OFF. You can pull it OFF. Now, this is like to take something OFF the table. It is not necessarily to turn something OFF, though you will see it used that way.

ON – OFF

OVER – Now OVER and ABOVE you can do it two different ways. Same way with UNDER or BENEATH.

OVER you are showing the movement of your dominant hand. If you are right-handed, that would be your right hand. OVER. Or you can also do it with the A. OVER or ABOVE.

And then UNDER or BENEATH. UNDER or BENEATH. Same idea but you can do it a couple of different ways. UNDER or BENEATH. It is also BELOW.

WITH

WITH – You take and put your two hands WITH each other. Or, TOGETHER. You can move it out to show the idea of duration. These two things have been TOGETHER for a long time. If it is just two items sitting on a table TOGETHER then you can put them TOGETHER. Or you can do TOGETHER or WITH over a duration of time.

WITHOUT – You do the sign WITH and the you just pull them apart and open. WITHOUT. WITHOUT

THROUGH

THROUGH – You are going to take your dominant hand, palm up, and then put it THROUGH the fingers of your other hand. Your non-dominant hand. You can do it THROUGH these two fingers, or THROUGH these two. THROUGH. Going THROUGH.

TO – Now this the preposition TO not the infinitive. Like, to eat, to dream. It is not to eat. You don’t say that. Because that to in the phrase to eat, to dream, doesn’t mean the preposition. It doesn’t mean movement from one place TO another. So this is movement from one place TO another. That would be TO, the preposition. TO

FROM

FROM – You are going to take your index finger pointing up with your palm out of your non-dominant hand. And then you are going to take the X of your dominant hand, of your…in my case right hand. With the palm kind of facing toward me or to the side…a natural way of doing this. Then you just pull back FROM the index finger. FROM. Where you FROM? Where are you FROM?

FOR

FOR – I did this FOR this purpose. Or because of, FOR. Or I am going to go get: I am going FOR. There are many different usages for the word FOR and also the word OF, the next word. In those cases…that is what I want to cover in the next lesson because it really depends on what the word means as to what sign you would use. But, generally you can do FOR. Sometimes you will see this done a few times, FOR, FOR, FOR and that means WHY. FOR what purpose? FOR. There is also a sign for WHY, we’ve talked about that. But this is FOR. FOR what purpose? FOR

And then OF. Now OF has so many different meanings. Just the general word OF you can spell it. OF. O-F. But, if you know what the word OF means, then you should sign the meaning for the word. In some cases you don’t even need it at all. But if you have a meaning for the word, then that is what you want to sign. And that is one of the words we will cover in the next lesson. The word OF.

AROUND or ABOUT – You can do this two different ways. You are going to take your kisssy fingers, all your fingertips together and you can point your palm off to the side and then the index finger of your dominant hand is going to go AROUND. Or you can point your hand up. AROUND. AROUND or ABOUT. AROUND and ABOUT.

And then two very easy ones. UP – DOWN. Just point. UP – DOWN.

Alright? Here we go through them again.

INSIDE

INTO

OUT OUT

WHILE, DURING or AS

WHILE

DURING the process of this, that happened.

And then, SINCE. SINCE comes up.

ON – Put this ON the table.

Or, OFF the table. Take it OFF the table.

OVER

OVER or OVER

UNDER or UNDER, BENEATH, BELOW

WITH or TOGETHER

Or, if you are showing these two people spend time TOGETHER, you can go WITH and show time or duration. TOGETHER

WITHOUT

THROUGH

TO – Now, remember this is the preposition. Moving FROM this place TO that place. TO

FROM

FOR

AROUND or AROUND

Or, ABOUT

UP and

DOWN

This is LearnSigns.com lesson number 25. So LearnSigns.com/25. And the next lesson will go into more detail about some of these words. But until then work on these words. Start forming sentences. You’ve got plenty of words now. You’ve got adjectives, nouns, verbs. You’ve got prepositions now. You’ve got adverbs. Hmm, a few adverbs we’ve done. Not many.

So you’ve got plenty to actually make sentences and to be able to communicate. Find a friend and communicate as much as you can. And enjoy these new signs that you’ve gotten. And then we will go over more detailed meaning of these signs in the next lesson.

Thanks for watching!

Tags above, in, on, prepositions, to

Uncategorized

Return From Costa Rica

There have not been any new videos the last few weeks because of a trip to Costa Rica. I was there working with a deaf church and learning Costa Rican sign language.

The language is very similar to ASL in its construction. I felt like I understood the vast majority of what was said the first day I arrived. However, as time went on, I was surprised to look at a list of 400 signs and see that about 60% of them were different (I haven’t actually counted the percentage, but it was more than half). I was engaged freely in conversation and communicated very well with the Deaf I met.

I think the key to understanding and making myself understood was to not get wrapped up in the exact meaning of individual signs. I allowed my new friends to talk with me without trying to stop them at every word I did not know. Though I missed some details in what they said in the first few days, I understood their stories enough to quickly build my own vocabulary.

By the time I left I had preached in the deaf church and had spent hours in conversation with the Costa Rican Deaf that I met.

The purpose of telling you this is to encourage you to not get caught up on the details when your main goal is to communicate. Obviously you need to learn as many signs as possible when you are first starting. However, you can also enjoy the company of people long before you have an extensive vocabulary. Don’t be afraid to engage people in conversation just because you won’t understand every word. This is a good time to work on your facial expressions and body language skills.

A new video should be available within a few days. Though I am going to try to maintain a weekly schedule, I will be traveling quite a bit the next two months. The videos will certainly take on a different look. Enjoy the change of background…or at least try to forgive me if things look a little rough.

Podcast

LearnSigns 24: Doctor’s Office

Post author By david
Post date January 9, 2013
No Comments on LearnSigns 24: Doctor’s Office

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:20 — 28.4MB) | Embed

In the last lesson we talked about different professions. In that we covered doctors and nurses. This follow-up lesson talks about the different things you need to know when visiting the doctor’s office. Obviously this doesn’t cover everything, but these are several important ones. If there are any specific doctor office type words you would like to know about, leave a comment below.

Vocabulary covered in this lesson:

Doctor
Nurse
Office
Hospital
Sick
Vomit
Pain
Fever
Medicine
Cold
Cough
Prescription
Pharmacy
Surgery
Healthy

View the episode transcript.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns lesson number 24.

We’re going to talk about the DOCTOR’S OFFCIE. In the last lesson we talked about professions. We talked about DOCTORS and NURSES.

Now let’s talk about the OFFICE visit.

You can do the Os to show OFFICE. This is just, the open hand is a ROOM. So you can do OFFICE like that with your open hands or you will see it done with the Os. DOCTOR’S OFFICE.

The NURSE we already did.

HOSPITAL

HOSPITAL – You draw an H like Red Cross on your shoulder. HOSPITAL

SICK

SICK – Sensitive fingers. You are going to touch your forehead and your chest, your stomach. Somewhere in that area. SICK

VOMIT – A great word. VOMIT. You take and PUKE it out. You can do it with the 4 or the 5 hand, and one hand is just fine or you can do two.

PAIN

PAIN – You take your index fingers and if you drove them together that would be very PAINFUL. That is the sign for it. Sometimes you will see it with a little twist. This could be HEAD ACHE, STOMACH ACHE. You show where the pain is.

FEVER – This is your temperature gauge here. Your thermometer. You take your F and you show a fever. Going up and down.

MEDICINE – This is with your sensitive finger again and you are going to rub the MEDICINE around like you are mixing the MEDICINE.

COLD

COLD – Like you are blowing your nose with one hand.

COUGH – Take your fist, or your S hand and you are going to pat your chest. COUGH

PRESCRIPTION – This is RX. Just the letters RX. PRESCRIPTION. This is also the sign for the PHARMACY. Or, you can do RX STORE – the PHARMACY.

SURGERY – Take your A and you are going to cut into your open hand. Or, if you have SURGERY on your shoulder. SURGERY on the heart. You take and use the A hand to show where the cut is. SURGERY

HEALTHY – This is the word for STRONG, or BRAVE, COURAGE. It is also HEALTHY. Your body is in good shape. HEALTHY

And then if you need to show a body part. There are signs for lots of different body parts. However, just for right now, you can point. If you are talking about your heart you point to your heart. If you are talking about your stomach, point to the stomach. Just point to the body part. And that will get you most of the time for your DOCTOR’S visits that you need to do.

Alight? Let’s go through these again.

DOCTOR

NURSE

OFFICE

HOSPITAL

SICK

VOMIT

PAIN

FEVER

MEDICINE

COLD – Now this is COLD as in SICK. Not COLD as in temperature.

COUGH

PRESCRIPTION

PHARMACY is RX or you can do RX STORE.

SURGERY

HEALTHY

And then the body parts you just point to what you need to show.

This is LearnSigns lesson 24. So you can go to LearnSigns.com/24 and you can find the transcript along with the vocabulary for this lesson.

Thanks for watching.

Podcast

LearnSigns 23: Professions

Post author By david
Post date January 1, 2013
No Comments on LearnSigns 23: Professions

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:18 — 43.3MB) | Embed

A short list of jobs or professions. Many can be done with the sign for the verb a person does and then add the person ending to the sign.

Vocabulary taught in this lesson:

Job, Work
Doctor
Nurse
President
Boss / Coach
Judge
Police
Lawyer
Soldier (Army / Military)
Teacher
Preacher
Mechanic / Plumber
Interpreter
Chef / Cook
Writer / Author

If you need the captions for the video, please click the Closed Caption [CC] button in the video player.

View the episode transcript.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 23. Or you can do, 23. Or, 23. There are different ways to do the twenties. But most of your numbers after the twenties are pretty normal. You’ve been practicing your numbers I assume.

We are into the 23^rd lesson. This is a new year. Starting a new year, 2013. And I’m glad to have you along with me. We have been doing these lessons for about six months. So I appreciate those of you who have continued to watch the lessons all of this time.

This lesson is going to be about professions or jobs you can have. So you can do the word JOB or WORK. You will also see it sometimes with JOB: JB. JOB or just WORK is fine.

DOCTOR

DOCTOR – Take you D and you touch the pulse. Some older folks you will see do it with the M. It is an older sign. It is still pretty common though among the older generation. So M for DOCTOR or D for DOCTOR.

And then NURSE is the same thing but with the N. The letter N. NURSE

PRESIDENT PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT – You take your 5s and then you come out to the S.

BOSS

BOSS – The person in charge. This is also the sign for COACH or anybody in authority. BOSS

JUDGE

JUDGE – Now this is JUDGE as in the verb to JUDGE something, to make a decision. You can use that for the person JUDGE, or you can do JUDGE and then do the PERSON ending. This is an ending you put on several of these signs that we are about to do to show that it is the person that does the action. So JUDGE. You can do the person who JUDGES.

POLICE – You are showing the badge on the chest. Sometimes you will see it with the open C hand. I like doing it with what I call the little C. POLICE

LAWYER

LAWYER – This is the word LAW and then the person who works with the LAW. Or you will see it with the palm in. This is the way I do it personally. With the palms together, LAWYER. But you will also often see it with the palm out. That’s fine. Both of those. LAWYER

SOLDIER

SOLDIER – This is the sign for ARMY, MILITARY so you can do SOLDIER. Again you can do it with just this, or you can say SOLDIER. Showing that it is the person that is in the MILITARY. SOLDIER

TEACHER

TEACH – Remember the sign for TEACH. Then we do the person ending. TEACHER

PREACHER – This is the sign PREACH, the letter F. And you PREACH, you deliver the message. PREACHER

MECHANIC

MECHANIC – This is to work a machine. Then you put the PERSON ending on it. MECHANIC. This is also the sign for PLUMBER. The same sign. MECHANIC or PLUMBER

INTERPRETER

INTERPRETER – I think we have gone all this time without learning the sign for INTERPRET or INTERPRETER. You take you F hands, or your 9s, and you put them together, your thumbs and your fingertips together. And then you give it a twist. INTERPRET. Sometimes you will see both hands go back and forth. Or just one. INTERPRET and then you put the PERSON ending on it. The PERSON who INTERPRETS. The INTERPRETER.

COOK or CHEF

This is the sign to COOK, the verb. To COOK. And then you put your PERSON ending on it. COOK. Or you will also see CHEF like this. CHEF. You take the CHEF’s hat. You show that it is a tall hat. The CHEF. Or, just CHEF.

WRITER

WRITER – The person who writes.

Now you can think of lots of other professions based on the verb that they do. Then often you can just add the PERSON ending. Sometimes you will see it called the -ER ending. But, it doesn’t always work with the -ER. For example, if you did JUDGE you wouldn’t say JUDGER. So just think of JUDGE and then the PERSON ending on that. So this is not just professions. Because you can use the PERSON ending in other words that wouldn’t be a job necessarily. So the idea is that you are showing the one who does the action.

Alright?

Again, JOBS, JOBS, WORK

DOCTOR or DOCTOR

NURSE

PRESIDENT

BOSS

JUDGE or you can do the PERSON who JUDGES

POLICE

LAWYER or LAWYER

SOLDIER

TEACHER

PREACHER

MECHANIC or PLUMBER

INTERPRETER

COOK or CHEF. Or you can also do COOK or CHEF like that.

And then, WRITER.

This is LearnSigns.com lesson 23. If you go to the website you can get the list of the vocabulary words there. Also, if you didn’t know, and you need the captions. I always put the transcript of the lesson with the videos. So if you watch it at LearnSigns.com or at YouTube, you can click the video button…or the Closed Caption button and be able to watch the captioning. So if you are downloading the videos and you need the caption then you can go to the website, LearnSigns.com/23 and you can read the captioning on there. I know there are some hard of hearing folks that are learning sign language for the first time (and I appreciate you watching the videos). Those can be a help to you if you are needing or depending on the captioning or reading lips, I will have that there at the website version of the video.

Again, thank you for watching. LearnSigns.com/23

Tags ASL, Jobs, Professions

Podcast

LearnSigns 22: Ethiopia Photos

Post author By david
Post date December 26, 2012
No Comments on LearnSigns 22: Ethiopia Photos

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04 — 20.9MB) | Embed

I recently returned from a trip to Ethiopia. I was visiting deaf churches and deaf schools. I spent almost 3 weeks in the country visiting some old friends and making new ones.

These photos are just a small selection of the people I met and the places I visited. The main language they speak in Ethiopia is called Amaharic and it has a unique alphabet. Therefore, to spell words in Ethiopian sign language is very different than American sign language. Besides that, many of the words themselves are signed like we do in ASL. I was able to communicate freely with the Deaf and had a wonderful time visiting.

I trust you and your family had a good Christmas. I will have a regular video again next week.

View the episode transcript.

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