Sign Language words are referred to as "signs”, and in this short American Sign Language (ASL) lesson, you’ll learn some of your first signs, like “Hello” and “Thanks.” Our ASL teacher will repeat each sign for you, so follow along and repeat with her. In sign language, you’ll want to use your dominant hand as your main signing hand, and your non-dominant hand to help when two hands are needed. So, keep in mind that the teacher is right-handed. If you are left-handed, you’ll want to mirror her.

A few of these 100 ASL words have alternate signs that might be common to see:

- Like any other language, daily-use ASL is often more relaxed and unstructured than what is taught in a textbook. We show this occasionally in this video, with signs like “Bad.” While it is formally taught to use both hands (like in “Good”), you’ll often see it signed with only the dominant hand movement.

- This is also true for the sign for “Happy”. This sign is often taught as doing the same motion with both hands, but during casual everyday use, this sign is commonly done with just one hand.

- The sign for “Phone” is in this video technically the sign for “Cell Phone”, and uses the letter "C". For “Phone”, you can extend your thumb and pinky finger next to your face to create a phone (letter "Y").

- A common alternate sign for “What?” is done by simply putting your hands out, palms up, and shrugging your shoulders - the same way that most non-ASL-speakers gesture “What?”

- "How?" is often signed by only turning your dominant hand outward, instead of both.

- In ASL, like in English, some verbs and nouns are the same or similar words. This is shown in this video with "Eat" and "Food" While the sign for eat is technically taught as a single motion, and the sign for food as a double motion, they are used interchangeably in daily-use ASL. This is true for many verb/noun pairs in ASL - the verb is a singular motion, and the noun is a double motion - but is often only clarified when the sentence needs clarification.

We'll show all of these alternative signs in later lessons.

With all question words and phrases, it’s important to accompany your sign with a puzzled or inquisitive facial expression to convey the question. Remember, ASL isn’t limited to just hand movements, but also facial expressions and body postures.

For days of the week, many of the signs look very similar, but it’s important to remember that most of them use letters of the alphabet. For example, Monday and Saturday look very similar, but Monday uses as “M” and Saturday uses an “S”. Also, Tuesday uses a “T”, Wednesday uses a “W”, Thursday uses a “H”, and Friday uses an “F”. These are noted in the video.

American Sign Language (ASL) is primarily used by the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in the United States and parts of Canada. There are over 300 different sign languages used around the world.

For more ASL lessons, and Sign Language for Beginners videos, subscribe to Language of Earth today - more ASL videos are on the way!

Music I use: Bensound
License code: DVQADYJ0MTR6N0VO