In the previous article, I introduced some basic sign language gestures which are useful in our daily life. Today I am going to talk more about my experience and introduce more signs. First, I want to supplement my previous explanation that whenever you sign, facial expression is also very important to show your emotion or attitude. It can help the audience understand your expression more easily. To me, it is kind of strange to smile or frown when I am signing. My comrades also have similar feeling. However, when I relax and give it a try, I find it not as difficult as I think and find the learning process very interesting and enjoyable. I watch some Youtube ASL teaching videos to learn sign. I always try to imitate the facial expression of the teachers and I will use mirror to check if my expression is strange or awkward. Sometimes I make fun of myself when I show a seemed unwilling smile or an awkward frown. After practicing for a few minutes, I find that if you want to show facial expression naturally and sign well, you should imagine that you are really communicating with other person. With imagination, you can show the expressions without feeling embarrassed.
After talking about the facial part, I am going to introduce more sign gestures about asking and answering questions. These signs are also very useful because they can support you when you need some help from others and also when others seek for your help.
1. Yes/No
First, I want to introduce how to sign ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ because they are very important when you answer question. To sign ‘Yes’, you should make a fist with dominant hand and shake the fist like a Japanese waving cat but only move your wrist. When you sign ‘Yes’, you should also show a positive facial expression even nod. To sign ‘No’, you should use your dominant thumb, index, and middle finger to make a sign like picking something for several times. Again, you should make facial expression and shake your head to show negative answer.
2. What’s your name?
I have talked about how to introduce your own name to others. After introducing yourselves, you may want to know what’s your new friends’ name. It is also an easy sign. First, you sign ‘name’ by signing letter H with two hands and moving dominant hand up and down to touch another hand. Then sign ‘What’ by moving two hands left and right and shrug your shoulders. At last, you can point the person you are asking. The most important thing is that you should lower your eyebrows when asking.
3. How to sign ____?
You may encounter the situation that you don’t know how to sign an object. You can ask others for help. The sequence is that you sign ‘How’ and then ‘sign’ and point at the thing you don’t know how to sign. To sign ‘sign’, you move two hands with each index fingers circularly in front of chest.
Hope this brief introduce can help you.