During these two weeks with Reba, I learned how to refer to different people. In our previous lessons and conversations, “I” and “you” were the only pronouns used since we only referred to each other. It really has been easier to communicate since I don’t have to fingerspell “our” or “you all” each time. These signs are very easy to learn because people who don’t know ASL actually make these gestures! It’s also important to note where your fingers point because that determines who you are talking about. Another example in which where you finger are point at is the difference between “look at me” and “look at you”. For “look at me”, you hold up two fingers are point them to your eyes while for “look at you”, you do the same sign with your hands, but point them away from your face. Reba also explained that in this case, you can imagine that the eyes are on the tip of the fingers, so whichever direction they point Is what you look at.
We have also been going through more expression terms! These are actually my favorite type of vocabulary to learn so that I don’t have to say “good” or “fine” each time I get ask how I’m doing. I like to put in an occasional “tired” or “excited” to jazz things up a little now! Sometimes I can even guess what they mean before Reba goes over it with me. It’s honestly one of the best feelings when you get it right and you see the joy on her face.
Even though Reba has her lessons planned out for me, we are starting to make random conversations here and there. Over the week, a friend told me one of her distant relatives was both deaf and blind, so people would communicate with him by signing into his hand and by taking his hands through the movement of the signs. I did my best to bring up this connection when she mentioned that one of her friends was also both deaf and blind. It was a fluid conversation with both of us sharing back and forth. I actually forgot for a moment that I was even signing. A couple days later I watched the recording and noticed that I was fingerspelling much quicker than the pace I usually sign!
Lastly, I wanted to mention that although I am getting better at understanding the context during our conversations, fingerspelling has still given me some trouble. (It is much easier for me to do it than to understand it when someone else fingerspells). I was never really good at spelling bees because I needed to see the letters on paper; I would just lose track of the previous letters. For ASL, I still need to translate the sign to letter, but doing that for each letter, keeping track of them, and putting it all together to form a word is not as simple as I thought it would be. I usually need the word to be repeated again and if I still don’t understand it, Reba would write it on a whiteboard for me.
I am definitely starting to see more and more progress, so hopefully I can keep this up!
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