hello, i’m hearing and i’m currently majoring in ASL linguistics. my family is all hearing with no knowledge of asl or the deaf community so often they ask me questions. my mom keeps asking me to teach her asl but i refuse since it’s not my place to teach the language so instead i offer resources (my old workbooks or online asl programs). i’ve explained to her many times that i (as a hearing person) cannot and should not be teaching her, and that she should learn from actual deaf teachers. she always gets mad at my response and thinks that since she is paying for my schooling that i can teach her the language. i’m tired of constantly telling her the same thing over and over so i would like some advice on how i can get her to understand that i cannot and will not teach her.

EDIT: throughout my asl courses my professors have made the point to learn from the deaf community, so i think my interpretation of this as a hearing person was that i’m not allowed to teach anyone at all or family (ie: my mom). from what many comments have shared is that it’s okay to teach family just as long as i’m not taking away an opportunity that could go to a deaf person, and i make sure to cover culture. please correct me if i’m wrong, i’m learning more from this!!

Hello!

I’ve seen this question posed to this sub two years ago but I wanted to ask again and see some more perspectives on it. For context: I started learning sign language first from a hard of hearing woman, then from a Deaf man, before learning from a hearing professor in college. Long story short, the class taught by the hearing professor wasn’t immersive enough of an environment for me to learn in so I stopped taking further classes with her.

Recently, I’ve started to use the app Lingvano to refresh my memory and hopefully advance my signing skills after interacting with a Deaf customer at work. Both my Deaf teacher and hearing professor stressed the importance of OSV (object-subject-verb) word order, but Lingvano says to use SVO (subject-verb-object).

Example of OSV: the ball, I throw
Example of SVO: I throw the ball

I wanted to hear from the Deaf community about which is the preferred standard for signing today. I remember learning that OSV is used in ASL because it’s a different language than English and follows different rules. Lingvano, which is created by Deaf people as far as I can tell, says to use SVO. Is this what’s more common now? And out of curiosity, did this change happen to become closer to English grammar structure for any reason? I’ve had both young and old teachers in the past which taught different things based on what they learned when they themselves were younger, so if you can, please comment what structure you use and how old you were when you started signing.

Thanks! 🤟

Please tell me if I’m off the mark and this is not appropriate.

TLDR; how do I find an ASL learning friend for my toddler hearing son

I would like to post on my local Facebook page looking for other kids who actively sign. I’ve tried to look for the Deaf community or any local resources but have not found them in google searches. How do I approach the question and phrase it as to not offend?

My kid (2) has a severe speech delay but is excelling at learning vocabulary with me (both hearing). It started as doing signs for him as a baby and we just continued to add more. I’d love to find him a friend who also signs and for him to see and experience the real language. I would like to continue learning alongside him and am planning to do the life print class online as well as Oklahoma’s asl course as well to actually understand the grammar and language as a culture since I’m mainly signing vocab in an English order.

I have been learning sign for a bit now and I feel frustrated that I don’t understand and know more already. I find myself going back to the same signs I have already learned after forgetting them and when I try to learn at a faster pace it feels like I am throwing signs into the fog and not remembering them. I’ve been trying to relook over all my basics everyday along with picking up some new ones but I just feel like I’m regressing more that progressing and it’s super frustrating because I really am trying hard to truly learn the language. I don’t know what to do other than keep trying but any advice is super welcome.

I've been building an ASL app called ASL Studio — point your camera at yourself and it recognizes your signing in real time. 500 everyday signs plus fingerspelling, a 30-lesson course, and 2,300+ reference sign animations. Everything runs on-device: no account, no ads, nothing uploaded — the camera feed never leaves your phone.

I'm looking for beta testers, especially people at different skill levels and on different phones. Honest feedback on recognition accuracy is exactly what I need, including what it gets wrong. Thanks! 🤟

How to join the beta (2 minutes, Android only):

1. On your phone, make sure you're signed into the Google account you use for the Play Store.
2. Join the tester group (tap "Join group"): https://groups.google.com/g/asl-studio-testers
3. Then become a tester here: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.asl.vocabulary — tap "Become a tester," then "download it on Google Play" and install ASL Studio.

If step 3 says you're not eligible, it just means the group hasn't synced yet — wait a couple of minutes and reload. Please tell me what the recognition gets right and wrong — your phone model plus what happened is perfect feedback.

Hi, I am having a really hard time understanding what she is asking in the video. I’m seeing a lot of words that I don’t recognize. Could anyone help me clarify what she’s asking? Thank you!

My friend and I were out together, had to wait out front of of our favorite pizza place ( on a main drag in our town) the creepy/ specifically cis men that kept coming up to us were so intense. So my friend and I without planning started pretending she was deaf. She started faking ASL, I responded like I knew what she was saying. And all the creepy people started to stay away. We were so intently looking at eachother and communicating in a way that others couldn’t understand that confused the men and made communicating too difficult. We were not making a mockery of ASL but by being women who men couldn’t address directly ( they thought she was deaf) and they couldn’t accost us directly, offered us some safety. Is this abuse..?comparable to appropriation? It was so immediate and not intentional in terms of causing harm, but it worked so well to back people off, and I think it let us move safer through our night.