Impress Your Friend With A Sign

There are really good stuff at ASL Pro if you want to learn some basic sign language. ASL that stands for American Sign Language. This language is not English. It's an independent language with its own grammar rules. It's not a universal sign language. It is however, not the only sign language that exist in the US. If you want to learn English word by word in sign language, you need to use SEE. It stands for Signing Exact English. I have seen many people using it though.

I've heard people assuming that sign language is universal, but it is not. Each country has its own sign language, just as each spoken language around the world has its own rules. Even the sign language in Britain is not the same as in the US. Their finger spelling is different as well. I actually was told that there are other sign languages in the US besides ASL and SEE. But I am not an expert on that. I am not familiar with them and never saw them in action. The only one that I actually did see in action is the "cued speech". You can see it in action down below.

Interesting though, just as the spoken English has different dialects around the US, so does ASL. Some signs vary from each state to another. Even between upstate New York and NYC which I witnessed long time ago. For example, the sign for "hospital" is different but still similar though. Also, I've seen the sign for "computer" in NY and CA signed differently. They don't look the same at all.

If you want to learn some basic sign and finger spelling or just to impress your friend, check out this site. It has video clips with live people, so you can see the sign in action. This is one of my favorite sign language site out of. There are other good ones of course, but I like their video clips with live people. For me, it is also easy to navigate which is always my top priority when I browse around.

ASL Pro
http://www.aslpro.com/

What Is A Cued Speech?



Cued Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plPw4H-ZsMg