Week 10!

Ok, so that was a little update on the progression of my project! Sorry about how out of order it is, but as I said in week 6? The time just got away from me. Any how as I mentioned I have soely been working on memorizing what I have already went over for the class, in order to maybe be able to sign a little in December. I'm still working on the whole "fear of signing in public" issue, so we will see how that happens. I believe that perhaps I might continue this project on into second semester in order to learn some more stuff before I go to college. This project has opened my eyes as to how beneficial learning a language is, it opens up a whole group of people you could have never communicated with before, and I believe that communication is one of the key ideas in life. I plan to try and learn as many languages I can obtain in my life. I planned on either taking sign language or spanish in college, but who knows I might end up taking both!

Week 9!

Greetings! I talked to the woman at Arby's! Her name is Maria and she is 22 years old. She came in earlier this week and because I already knew what she was going to order, I instead tried to talk (or sign?) to her. I only got out "I'm learning ASL" and she started to smile really big! She started signing to me and I only understood because she was mouthing words as well. I don't think she realized that I couldn't understand her signing, she had had numerous years of sign language while I only had about 3 months of sketchy memorization. Either way it was an extremely cool experience I thought I'd share with you all!

Week 8: I'm becoming slightly more confident.

In my project that is, I'm actually terrified to sign to anyone else. It's like a stage fright thing, I get really nervous whenever I have to sign in front of somebody because I'm afrad I'll mess up. With the project however I am beginning to realize that it doesn't matter how much I try to memorize something, if I don't understand it. In order to really succeed at learning a little bit of the language you have to know that you will mess up, just like you will when learning anything different and new to you. With this project, I am tryijng to learn sign language, but I also just enjoy learning about the culture of the people who are involved in this community. It's like they live in their own little world because no one can understand what they are saying except for those who know the language. I don't know why, but that is really cool to me. It also got me thinking about how some people who don't have english as their native language think and feel when they hear english speakers talk. It must sound so foreign and alien to them. Anyways, I am happy with the progress I have made this far. With the words and sentences I have now, I think I'm going to try and memorize them to share with the class in December. Until next time!

Week 7: On to Vocabulary

I'm surprised to say this, but I'm actually excited to start some vocabulary. In any language you enhance your skills by broadening your vocabulary, so why not with sign language.Also with how busy I have been, its been really hard to keep up and make as much progree as I wanted to. But hoenstly sometimes, life just gets in the way. Any how, online, there are numerous "vocabulary assignments" for beginners that really help. The one I choose to look at included all of these sections: family, time, temperature, food, and many other things. My favorite one as of right now is "cold" which can really come in handy especially now that its becoming colder and colder as the days progress. The sign is simple, just put your arms up next to your body and shake a little bit to represent shivering!

Week Five!

So, i have realized that I suffer from? Maybe short-term memory loss? Because none of my information is sticking with me as much as I would like it to. I will frankly remember how to sign a word, but I won't get it exactly right. It's really frustrating me and wearing me down. Maybe this is normal and I am just a perfectionist, but it is upsetting to me. As a result I have decided not to try and learn the language in its entirety, but instead try to focus and learn some sentences that could be built on in my future. For example after my encounter at Arby's ( by the way that woman comes in almost every week) I have tried to learn how to sign "I am learning ASL". Here is how I managed.
You first sign "I". Not the letter but with your first finger pointed at your chest.
Then sign "Am" which is simply the letter A followed by the letter M
To sign 'Learning" you put a hand in front of you and act as if you are grabbing something out of your palm with your other hand and putting it to your forehead.
Next simply sign the letters for A, S, and L

Week Three: Learning the basics!

September 21-27
I started week three full of excitement! I am really passionate about learning sign language and that makes it easy to look forward to learning new things. As I wrote in week two, I had been learning basic words like: mom, dad, grandparents, marriage, and the like. This continued in week three. These are all simple words but I figured you have to start small to end big. As I mentioned previously there are numerous ways to sign certain words which can make it difficult. Below I included some pictures of an example:
This is an example of a way to sign mom or mother.
While this is an example of a way to sign dad or father.

Ok, so I did not keep up.

Alright, so I have not been keeping up with my blog posts unfortunately. So I decided to make up for it! I will instead explain what I went over and learned week by week in my next few blog posts because I have it all written down, I just have not been able to transfer it on to my computer. I hope you all enjoy experiencing this with me!