Expressive Fingerspelling

zestymeatballs

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What are some words/ drills to practice fingerspelling?

People often say practice your name or your family members names. Or people say practice words you hear.

But what are some words that are DIFFICULT to fingerspell?

Ive been praticicing word groups such as (-th,-es,-st,-nd,-at,-or)

Is there any words that YOU find hard to fingerspell?
 
Unless you have a huge family, just practicing their names won't give you much practice. :giggle:

Practicing letter combinations are good so that you won't think "s-t" but "st". Also, always think and mouth the entire words/names, not letter by letter.

Practice other proper nouns such as street and town names, store and restaurant names, book and movie titles, and the names of famous people. Pop culture and technology vocabulary are some other good categories to practice. Those are the kinds of things that most commonly require spelling.
 
Thanks! But I live in Germany so the street names are way too long to practice with. I will forsure try everything else you said though! :)
 
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zestymeatballs said:
Thanks! But I live in Germany so the street names are way too long to practice with. I will forsure try everything else you said though! :)

But street names are exactly the type of thing you'll be fingerspelling everyday - so wouldn't it make sense to practice them?
 
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But street names are exactly the type of thing you'll be fingerspelling everyday - so wouldn't it make sense to practice them?


Not really. I'm American. And I wont be living in germany forever. German sign language is different than ASL. And there is not much ASL practitioners in the part of Germany where im living.

But I guess I could use the street names just for fingerspelling practice.
 
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zestymeatballs said:
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But street names are exactly the type of thing you'll be fingerspelling everyday - so wouldn't it make sense to practice them?


Not really. I'm American. And I wont be living in germany forever. German sign language is different than ASL. And there is not much ASL practitioners in the part of Germany where im living.

But I guess I could use the street names just for fingerspelling practice.

Even so - the "point" is that if you truly want to practice all sorts of combinations so you have a fluid style - street names (especially "complicated one") as well as weird technical terms (like medical terminology) is actually PERFECT.

The point is to stretch yourself, not pick easy words and stick with those.
 
When I have time, I've been going through a dictionary and finger spelling the words there. Or just finger spelling what I see in the room I'm in.
 
Lately, I have been fingerspelling while I read a book. I have fingerspelled a whole chapter before :) It gives great practice!
 
Are there any words I find difficult to fingerspell? Heck yes, all of them!! ha!

Although my fingerspelling has improved little by little over the years, it is still my nemisis. Often my mind pictures the word and is on to the next sign in my sentence before my fingers can correctly form the word. This happens most often when I have not had to use ASL for while and slip back into translation mode (thinking in english then having to translate that to ASL/PSE). Personally, for me, the best fingerspelling practice involves signing a full sentence and then fingerspelling the same sentence - that way I practice a variety of letter combinations as well as see every word as a whole rather than just a series of letters (not sure if that makes sense in anyone else's head but my own :hmm: haha).
 
whenever i am out i fingerspell the entirety of almost ever sign i see ads on buses everything that way i get a lot of practice on common words but also get practice with unfamilliar or more complicated words
 
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