Weekly Journal 11

December 22, 2014

This week on December 22, 2014, I began my twenty percent time by reviewing the words from prior lists starting from “day” all the way to “pain”. After, I began to practice signing common phrases used in ASL. I learned eight out of fifteen phrases this week: “What is your name?” “Are you deaf?” “Can you hear me?” “What city do you live in?” “Where do you work?” “How old are you?” “Are you hungry?” and “Do you like to cook?” I learned two different versions of “What is your name?” and of “What city do you live in?” Beginning to practice and learn these eight common phrases is very important because I can use them if I ever come to meet a person who cannot hear. Although these questions may seem quite simple, they have the potential of going a long way in a conversation. As a beginner, I am only learning conversation starters for now and see where I can go from there. A pattern that I noticed this week is that for certain phrases, theres more than one way of communicating to another person what you want to say. Also, I noticed that when you are signing something in ASL, it will not be word for word. Each of the eight phrases do not have literal, word-for-word signings. For example, “What is your name?” is actually just signed as “You name?” I believe that this week I have done well and I was much more excited about it (more than usual) because I was and still am, making the little that I have learned into something greater. Next week I plan to continue revieweing the first 100 basic words in ASL and finish learning the fifteen phrases found on this website: https://www.udemy.com/blog/sign-language-phrases/