bicycle signs

tuatara

tuatara

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Hi all,

I am a hearing person learning ASL and really liking it. I've been studying from lots of sources (instructional DVDs, classes at a local school, grammar (etc) books, online dictionaries, youtube for practice seeing the signs faster, etc.) I'm in the process of lining up some people to practice with who I think will be somewhere around my level, but I don't have any deaf friends yet. I'm looking forward to trying to go to some Deaf events for more exposure and hopefully to meet people.

There's a deaf guy I ran into a few times (and I think I can find him again eventually through some friends of mine) who once told me he wanted to learn to do bicycle repair, and I know a little about this. I have my own tools and I'm a good teacher, so I'm thinking of asking him if he'd help me with my ASL and I can help him learn to work on his bike.

If he's interested, I know I can fall back on writing things down if I don't have enough words, but I'd like to sign as much as possible. And there are words I know I'm going to end up finger-spelling ad nauseum. Like derailleur for example. I'm imagining that words we need to use often are going to develop their own shorthand as we work (assuming he wants to do this with me) and we'll end up making our own signs for things we don't know. (Me because I'm an ASL newbie and him because he's a mechanic newbie.) So I'm wondering if there's somewhere I might find specialty-word signs like that? Or find out if they exist? And if they don't, is it normal to end up with your own shorthand when you talk to the same person repeatedly about them?

Sorry if these are neurotic questions! And thank you for reading:)
 
That is a great post. You know, I do have a girlfriend in Michigan who wants to take ASL class. I do buy and sell bikes mostly in Chicago area.

My girlfriend had suggested that if she takes class, why don't I take class in something?? Bicycle repairs come to mind.

I do know a deaf guy who used to live in Darien, WI who was heavily involved in bicycles, but he now lives in Indianapolis. It's nice to see people who are interested in bike repairs.


By the way, my deaf friend and I just finger spell the whole thing---derailleur.
 
Thanks dereksbicycles-

I hope you and your girlfriend enjoy your classes if you take them.

What do you and your friend do for words that have other meanings outside the bike world, like spoke or dish? (I'm trying to run through my head how I'd teach wheel truing in sign.) Borrow the mainstream signs or spell or other?
 
amylynne said:
Thanks dereksbicycles-

I hope you and your girlfriend enjoy your classes if you take them.

What do you and your friend do for words that have other meanings outside the bike world, like spoke or dish? (I'm trying to run through my head how I'd teach wheel truing in sign.) Borrow the mainstream signs or spell or other?
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, but we fingerspell those words.
 
You can also make great use of descriptive classifiers.
 
Thanks again, both of you. Reba, you've sent me to go do some studying!
 
Sign Language for Auto Shop

Here is a link to some signs for auto mechanics. Not sure how many you'll be able to use since cars are so different from bikes, but I hope there are at least a couple.
 
To my knowledge, long difficult words that are not normally used are often fingerspelled or made up depending on where it's used. I can't think of a specific word at this moment, but I have seen signs for difficult words made up in Rochester. Since those words were commonly used among specific groups of people (like IT students or engineering students), it became commonly used in those places. However, those signs are done differently in Texas since the group here is different.

Kinda like someone saying "soft drink", "soda", "pop", "cola", "coke", or whatever...
 
Thanks O*I*C! I can see 7 right off the bat that I can use. Then there are words that are used in the bike world, but refer to an object that looks really different than the car's analog, and his sign seems to be specifically indicating (among other things) the shape of the car-related object, so I probably won't try to use those. Like the sign he gives for suspension system. I might try to adapt them though. This is awesome though - what a little gold mine. Thanks again!

And thanks VamPyroX - that makes sense, what you're saying. I wanted to run this stuff by you all before jumping in and taking liberties though:\
 
I thought I'd post an update and thanks to everyone who helped me with this.

I finally found the guy I was looking for, and he was into doing a learning swap. We met twice, and the first time I ended up writing alot down, partly out of the nervousness of just meeting someone for the first time - I often get a little introverted until I come to. So we did wheel truing that way. For the second meeting (cup and cone mechanisms: talked about concepts, then we repacked the bearings in a hub) I pretty much signed the whole thing. Finger-spelling here and there, and a couple of diagrams I drew, and I'm sure alot of the way I'm signing isn't exactly right, but it seems I'm getting the information across, which is exciting.

So after the bike session, we just sit around and talk (er, sign) and he pushes me to try things I don't think I can get across, then I end up asking him what some of the signs he uses mean. All the different types of studying I've been doing (taking classes, reading about grammar, watching dvds and practicing in a talking-to-myself way all the time) seem like good things, but since we started meeting I feel like I'm learning much faster. Definitely having scads of fun.

Tomorrow is our last ASL 1 class, which they're replacing with a party, then ASL 2 starts in 2 weeks. Life will be busy for a while but I wanted to post something here after reading about how lots of people seem to disappear, maybe losing interest in signing. Kind of the opposite for me at the moment - I just have more access in real life so I'm not online as much.

Thanks again everyone and see you around.
 
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