Note to self: Learn sign language!

[hawkchick11]

My son's father is going to school to be a sign language interpreter, so he's been teaching our son some words, and I'm learning them too, just so I know what our son is trying to tell me.

Our son's favorite sign is 'poop'.. go figure.

[justZu]

I've never had any deaf customers, but a funny thing did happen when my son was very young.

We were in line to get some lunch at Wendy's, a boy and his mom were in front of us and the boy kept tugging on his mom's shirt and signing something over and over and over. You could tell by her face she was getting angry with him. Finally she turned to him and started signing really big and overexaggerated like she had finally lost her patience. My son's eyes got very big and he whispered, kind of astonished, "Mom, she's yelling at him - WITH HER HANDS!"
I guess he never realized that all kids can be annoying at times.

[Chanlin]

You can actually get a college certificate in American Sign Language.

I have a cousin who's deaf, so I learned to sign as a child. It's not that hard to learn and can be kind of fun if you make a game out of learning it.

I'm actually planning on taking Sign Language to fill my foreign language requirements for my Education degree

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

In Upward Bound, I had to take sign language when I was in summer classes for three years.

The teacher the first two years was God-awful. Her idea of teaching was to gesticulate wildly throwing a bunch of signs at us at once, and then write on the chalkboard what each sign meant. I'm guessing the idea was to make us learn sign language the way it might be presented by a deaf person--without any speech. However I could never make the connections between the sign and the meaning on the chalkboard so I didn't learn much of anything.

In the third year we had a different teacher who was better about explaining verbally what each sign meant, but I still had trouble making the signs with my hands.

I dunno. I can pick up just about anything, but sign language seems to have been an exception.

[Chanlin]

The alphabet and numbers are actually not too hard to learn, just like learning the ABC's thats exactly how my mom showed me. Just would do A and sign A then B and so on. The signs for actual words and phrases are a little more difficult. I know a few like how to say thank you, and how to count and various mathematic symbols for like addition subtraction and such. I also know how to say I can finger spell.

I actually get a quite a few surprised looks when I start signing to people who are deaf that I encounter in every day life. I have never actually used it to translate for anyone, but at my first job at Boston Market we had a deaf customer who became a regular because I was easy to communicate with and didn't treat him like he was stupid etc.

[MinimaMagistra]

Ohh man, I had fun the other night with these two blue-collar deaf guys who came in. Paid for their room, for one thing, in two fives and one hundred twenty-one ones. We figured out the whole deal through notes and they went to bed happy.

I was hanging out after-shift to chat with my friend on night shift when one of them came back down, asking about pizza delivery. Yeah sure, love, in a city with a nightlife. It was one o'clock on a weeknight: everything'd been closed for two hours or more. I started to tell him about this 24 hour place up the road, but he interrupted my note to pantimime that he was just slightly drunk, and so couldn't drive.

And so, caught up in the spirit of adventure, I made a food run to the place. Figured out what he wanted (eggs. Meat. Cheese. Ham and cheese omlete, hey!), got ten bucks from him, went on an adventure.

This was, incidentally, also the first time I've been asked out in a note.

[Reyneth]

My son's eyes got very big and he whispered, kind of astonished, "Mom, she's yelling at him - WITH HER HANDS!"

I started school for an ASL interpreting degree (ran out of $$ before I finished) and one of my teachers taught in a School for the Deaf for years. She found it interesting the ages that kids learned to just *shut their eyes* (with attitude of course) when she was yelling at them! Apparently it was between 9&12.

[powerboy]

One of my ex's started to teach me sign language, but then we broke up after a while. I know A,B,C,D. I have been wanted to get a computer program that teaches sign language. At least, it would be better than nothing

[Eric the Grey]

I've dealt with a few completely deaf customers, they've all honestly been some of the best customers I've had. I don't know a damn bit of sign language and I couldn't read lips if my life depended on it, so I have to write everything down. Seems to work very well if a bit slower than usual.

I agree with walking with scissors on the sign thing, sounds like it needs to be elaborated upon.

Back when I worked at Avis RAC (almost 20 years ago now) We had a regular that came in every other week or so and he would always come to me, even if it meant waiting longer in line, letting others go ahead of him. I asked him one time why, and he told me (wrote it down) it was because I always looked him in the eye when I spoke to him, and it made it easier for him to read my lips.

It was cool, because he always upgraded and bought insurance, which padded my pocket just a bit.

This thread made me look. They offer ASL at my college. That might be a worthy credit for this summer...


Eric the Grey

[Becks]

I used to know how to say "I need to use the bathroom" in ASL. I don't anymore.

Add that to formerly knowing how to ask "Where is the toilet paper?" in Arabic.

[crazylegs]

Add that to formerly knowing how to ask "Where is the toilet paper?" in Arabic.

I have a mutual aquintance who can order a beer in 50 different languages. There's a skill worth having!

[DenyRage]

we had a completly deaf guy come through the drive thru at my work. yep. deaf guy, trying to talk to speaker, and getting mad at us when he couldnt hear us.

[TWOLF]

I am learning sign right now only because I just lost another 5% of hearing which makes me half deafin both ears. I think there is a problem in a lot of places where people get upset about those who don't "speak" the same language.Trust me on this one, if you are getting frustrated with someone who is hearing impaired think about how it might feel for them. I never really thought about it until I was told how deaf I really was. Of course alot can be lost in translation if you don't pick up on the gesture correctly. The only person in our house not learning it is one of our roommates.

[Imogene]

To be perfectly honest, to me, "assortment of 3, 99cents" sounds like a 3 for a dollar deal.

Which might possibly make sense if they were packaged together in groups of threes, but no, they're individually wrapped. However, if the tag is still reading that way when I get in tomorrow, I'll bring it up with an MOD.