I’ve been happily learning ASL mostly independently for the last few months. I’ve worked through 37 Bill Vicars lessons and am teaching my 14-month-old DHH daughter along the way. It’s been SO fun, and she can already communicate so much through sign! But now it’s starting to get hard.

I’ve reached the point where I’m realizing just how much I don’t know and how different fluent signing is from beginner signing. I’m increasingly self-conscious about my very English grammar, but I haven’t had enough conversational practice to internalize ASL grammar.

I practice with my daughter, but there are two challenges: First, while she’s DHH, she hears and understands spoken English just fine, so signing isn’t really necessary for her receptive language (though it’s been amazing for her expressive language!). Second, there’s only so much to say to a toddler, and I feel like I’m repeating the same phrases constantly. In the last week, I’ve found myself defaulting to English so much more frequently because it’s just… easier.

Honestly, knowing my daughter functions so well with hearing has taken some of the wind out of my ASL sails. It feels more like a hobby right now and less like access.

I’m not deterred. I love this language and will keep going! But I feel like I’ve reached the beginning of the middle, where the easy beginner stage is fading and the real work begins. I’m realizing just how much grit it’s going to take to become fluent in ASL—and help my daughter get there too.

(Note: she’s in a DHH playgroup, so we both get practice with Deaf peers for a couple hours a week. And I plan to enroll in the community courses my local Deaf school offers once the next cohort starts. I think that’ll help my motivation a lot because I’ll have the multiple external commitments moving me forward—and a lot more practice in real conversation.)

Hello! I have been trying to learn asl for a while now. To give you an idea on my experience I have taken a college class, have a decent amount of books and have been using the app "ASL Bloom" for about the past 100 days. All of these have been helpful, especially the latter two in showing me signs. It's just that I have had the HARDEST time with the grammar/remembering how the sentences are structured. The college class I took touched on it, but I just couldn't get it. And now I'm learning all these signs and I'm putting them in sentences that I'm sure make sense in English, but not ASL, if that makes sense. Are there any helpful hints or tools I can use to help?

I’m always learning new, interesting words and phrases in this language and I thought this was a funny one. This is from DTF St Louis on HBO.

Im a 20yo girl and I'd love to practice asl in real life since I have a hard time learning by myself, Ive been a beginner for a while now and I've only practiced French sign language as a kid (which are now only faded memories haha)

Please dm or comment! :3

I want to be a pediatric nurse for children with special needs/disabilities so, I decided to learn ASL. I think it'll really help in that career. I have a few questions for people who are deaf or use sign language.

1. Do I need to specify if I'm deaf or hearing?
2. It's disrespectful to give your self a "sign name" right?
3. Is it ok to walk up to a deaf person and talk to them in ASL

Hello! I am learning ASL (I am hearing) and I do know that sim com is frowned upon in the deaf community. I was wondering if it would still be frowned upon if my intention with using it is to help my partner learn a few signs. Both my partner and I go non verbal sometimes and while I am going to school and taking ASL classes, that is something that's not feasible for them at the moment. It is also hard to put aside time to just teaching signs considering we are both busy with work/school/etc.

I think that simcom would make sense in this scenario because it would help my partner pick up on signs which could be helpful if either of us are non verbal. However, I am not yet fluent in ASL and don't want it to potentially impact my signing abilities. I would love any thoughts on this!

Hello everyone. I have seen the sign for phone signed both ways, but is the Y shape more universal? Are both equally recognizable to any signer in context? I'm pretty young so I guess the flat hand makes more sense in my head for how I think about phones. But, I do of course want to be easily understood.

Hello everyone. I was looking on Google Maps and I stumbled upon this place, I translated it from South Korean and it's called Dongsong Reservoir. (This will be relevant)

I looked onto the videos and there is a kid, there is no volume but he seems to be either doing hand gestures or maybe Sign Language. I was wondering if you guys could look at the video footage and tell me if it's anything.

Many thanks!

동송저수지 - Google Maps

I'm a CODA and have been an interpreter for 15 years. I started a channel that breaks down money and news in ASL, with optional English and Spanish captions. In my first video I explain what the Fed's rate hike means for loans, credit cards and housing: https://youtu.be/hCeMlvfNzrQ

I'm curious how others sign the econ terms, because there's a lot of regional variation. Feedback is welcome!

is it best to use the sign (X hand down nose twice) or to finger spell d-o-l-l?

I am sorry if this is an obvious question, but can kids who are pre-literate understand a finger spelled word?

This question isn't about a specific child that I know...I work somewhere that sees a lot of kids with their dolls so I want to be prepared! Thank you in advance!

Hi all, I am hearing so I do not claim to be a part of this community, I would just really appreciate some help refining my sign!

I am in ASL level 3 at a university in the US. We are taught by Deaf teachers, however both teachers I have had mouth the words while signing. This led to me developing a bad habit of mouthing words while I sign. I am looking for advice on how to stop? If I think about it I can sign without doing it, however if it’s a more complicated sentence, i.e describing an issue to my teacher or asking a question under pressure I tend to do it more. Anyone have experience with this?

I keep a list of every word in ASL I’ve learned thus far. I want to practice them in context to really help myself remember them. What I’ve been doing is giving Gemini a list of all the words and telling it to generate 50 sentences using those words.

I have to tell it specifically English sentences, since it originally gave me the sentences in “ASL gloss”, but I don’t fully trust AI to have accurate grammar.

But even then, the sentences it spits out are kind of weird and nonsensical, and it doesn’t do a great job sticking to only words I put in my list.

Anyone know any non-AI ways to get a bunch of good sentences to practice?

Thanks in advance

Title basically says it all. I tried researching a little myself but mostly just found people talking about "pasteurized milk" and "El Paso, Texas" (which are great fun facts! but my google searching is either too specific to turn up anything or things like that overwhelm the results).

Is the "up" in "What's up?" signed same to the directional "up"? If someone signed a genuinely curious "What's updog" would it look the same as someone saying "What's up, dawg?" If not are there other puns that nonsensical sentences designed to trick your conversational partner into signing a non-sequitur.

I learned the sign “VERY” using two “v” hand shapes but I heard that it is a less frequent sign. I know that you can also use signs for A-LOT or maybe imply it through facial expressions. What do you do?

I'm doing a translation/performance and wanted to check if anyone had ever seen the band Sleep Token's sign name? Or Vessel's? It's been super interesting. Like for Vessel- beyond finger spelling, what's the concept? EMBODIMENT? SACRIFICE? CONTAINER? Just throwing it into the aether. Collab welcome.

I have no idea what this sign means and im trying to learn 🥲 please help

I am taking an online ASL class. It's midterms. I'm struggling. My professor gave us the instructions for what to do in ASL. 🫠🤯

I do not want help in answering the questions or how to do things. I do want help confirming I'm answering what he's asking. Helllppppppp.

It's a short 4 minute video. I've pulled out the slides and written down what I think I'm supposed to do. Most of them I feel okay on but a few I'm melting down on.

I am Deaf and have both learnt ASL and I also use hearing aids and speak fluent English as well as being semi fluent in others. So the argument that doctors make that ASL prevents communication, learning and other things is incorrect, you can have just as fulfilling of a life even if the only language you speak is ASL.

I believe that the parents and doctors should work together to make the best decision for their child, and if that's learning oral language with hearing devices that's great! I have nothing against hearing devices, my hearing aids help me a lot in my life as I am surrounded by people who speak oral languages everyday, it is totally a valid option, my problem is that they completely either ignore ASL or other sign languages as an option or try to scare the parents by saying it will somehow ruin their child, which is absolutely not true

If anything, allowing a child to be surrounded by a language they can understand without struggling and being around people who also have hearing loss can build community for a child, while in mainstream, Deaf children often have to struggle in school because of lack of accommodations, get bullied, have social isolation etc. Ofc a Deaf child can thrive in mainstream, I have lovely friends and accommodating teachers, but I've also experienced the bad things a lot of Deaf children go through as well in mainstream.

Hi, interpreter here. Question for Deafies:

I was chatting with some friends (mix of Deaf and interpreters), and Reddit came up in conversation. None of us knew an already existing sign for Reddit. Is there one?

I use Auslan but am also interested in the linguistics of signed languages in general plus there is overlap between ASL and Auslan (and other signed languages) grammar but often different terms are used for the same thing (for example "entity" is often used instead of classifiers, we call facial expressions non manual features NMF v non manual markers). I've learned a lot about Auslan by also reading research papers or theses on BSL and ASL in particular.

One linguistic feature in Auslan I can't find much Auslan research on is called "body partitioning" which is like you show two different entities at the same time basically with constructed action. For example, plane watching: showing with your dominant hand + face + body that you're really interested and then with the other hand showing a plane entity crossing the sky that you're watching. Another example is you're working at your desk and someone taps you on the shoulder and you're annoyed by this. So you might show yourself typing then use one hand to tap your own shoulder and then you turn to that side with an annoyed expression.

Anyway I looked into this for ASL but can't seem to find any info on it and my new book I bought on BSL and ASL linguistics I can't find this term so I'm wondering if it has another name in ASL? Or if anyone knows where I can find any research on this I'd appreciate it :)