Hey signers! We get asked all the time how do you change words like go to going or went? What
if I told you you don't change the sign itself, you add a tense to the phrase. In today's video
you are going to be learning just that. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss
any future lessons just like this. Now let's learn how to sign tenses. [Music]
Before you learn the actual signs for tenses, let's focus on what we would call the body timeline. When
you have past, present, and future signs, they are divided in your body timeline. Past signs go behind
you and future signs go in front of you. Whenever you have something that happens further in the
past it goes further away from your body, but whenever you have signs that are further in the
future they go further away, just like this. You have the sign past, just like this. It's showing
into the past but if something happened a long time ago, it goes further away. But if it happened
recently, it's just very recently, right there. It happened just in the past. But whenever you have
something like the sign for tomorrow, it just moves a tiny bit away into the future versus a further
distance into the future. Notice all of these are separated further from the body whenever they're
further into the past or the future and closer to the body whenever they're more recent or more
recently into the future. Now let's learn our first set of signs which are signs for the past.
'Just happened, just happened,' what you're doing is an 'X'-shaped hand bringing it up
to your face and you're going to close your teeth together just like this and pull your
chin in showing oh it just happened, just in the past 'just happened.' 'Recent,
recent,' you have an 'X'-shaped hand put on the side of your chin and then pointing it like it just
happened. Your facial expression is going to change how recently something happened 'recent.' 'Used to,
used to,' you have a '5' hand moving in a circular motion moving into your past 'used to.' 'Yesterday,
yesterday,' you have an 'A'-shaped hand with your thumb out and moving it from your chin back
to your jaw. It is moving slightly into the past because it happened just in the past
'yesterday.' 'A couple days ago or two days ago,' you have the number '2' coming from your chin to your
jaw moving just like this 'a couple days ago.' 'A few days ago, a few days ago,' we have the '3' with
the thumb on your chin flipping back to your jaw 'a few days ago.' 'A week ago or this past week,' the sign
week is going across like for a calendar going a week across the calendar and then you put it back
behind you because it's happening in the past 'a week ago or this past week.' 'A month ago, a month ago,'
you're doing the sign for past and then month. Your two fingers going back to back and going down
'a month ago.' 'Last year or a year ago,' you have this sign year and then the one hand moving back into
the past or the one flicking back behind you 'last year, a year ago.' 'A long time ago or way in the past,'
you have this '5' hand and it's moving back behind you into a far circular distance showing
that it happened in the past 'a long time ago.' Now that we have learned our first set of signs, let's
talk about how we use them in a phrase. ASL follows time topic-comment structure. So when you have an
ASL sentence, you're going to put the time at the beginning and everything that follows after is
happening in that time indicated. If a time is not indicated, then it's assumed to be in the
present tense. Let's look at this example. I am going to the store versus I went to the store.
One is saying it's happening in the future and the other is showing that it happened in the past. So
you're going to set your sentence up the same but you're going to change one word at the beginning,
the future and the past. For instance, I am going to the store would be 'future store I go' meaning going.
Where, I went to the store 'past store I go' meaning I went.
Notice the signs were the same but we did the future sign at the beginning
changing the tense and the past sign at the beginning changing the tense.
This changes those words of going and went because of that future and
past sign used right at the beginning. Now let's learn your next set of signs.
'Today or now,' you have 'Y'-shaped hands flipped upside down pushing down 'today or now.' 'Day, day,'
you're doing the letter 'D' hand showing the sun going through the day.
'Week, week,' it's like your calendar is in your hand and it's drawing a line across the whole week
'week.' 'Month, month,' looking at a calendar you're going down looking at the whole month 'month.' 'Year, year,'
imagine this is the sun and this is the earth going around in one year 'year.'
Okay, are you ready for just one more lesson? Great! This is all about specific times such as two weeks
or six months ago or 5:45. We created a video all about this which you can check out down in
the description but in a nutshell it's using numbers one through nine incorporated with a
time sign. So this is what it would look like. We have the sign week like this but if we wanted to
show that something was happening in two weeks, we would get the number two and we would move it in
to the future in two weeks. Well, what about six months? Some people would just think you do six
and months but you can incorporate the number one through nine and the sign, six months. What about a
specific time maybe you want to meet someone at 5:45. You would take your time and then do the
sign 5:45 coming from the time sign 5:45. Like I said before we made a video all about this so
go and check that one out after this video. All right let's move on to your last set of signs.
'Future, future,'
your hand is coming out from your cheek moving forward 'future.'Will, will,' you have
a flat hand up to the side of your cheek moving it out forward just a little bit. It looks very
close to like the sign future. Future goes out further; will is a shorter distance 'will.' 'Later, later,'
it's the letter 'L' hand flicking forward into the future
'later.' 'One day, as in a day in the future it will happen. Day with the sign future 'one day.' 'Tomorrow, tomorrow,'
your thumb flicks forward into the future 'tomorrow.' 'In a few days, in a few days' you're using the
number '2' moving forward or '3' showing two days into the future three days into the future
'in a few days, in a few days.' 'In a week or in a week,' the sign week is just like this going across a
calendar but you move it into the future forward and it's a week in the future 'in a week, in a week.'
'Next month, next month,' it's the sign future with the signed month
'next month.' 'Next year or a year,' into the future. You do the sign '1' moving forward from this sign year.
'One year into the future.' You can also do it in two years, in three years, in four years, 'in one year.'
Okay,now it's time to put these signs into sentences.
Do you want to meet on Friday night? 'Friday night you want meet you?' [Music]
I wake up at 5:45 every morning. [mumbling] not really though I hit my snooze clock.
'Every morning 5:45 I wake up I.' [Music] I am going on vacation in three weeks. [Music]
'In three weeks vacation go I.' [Music]
If you made it to the end, congrats! We know this video was a long one. Don't forget to subscribe
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us and watching all of our past videos. Until next time keep learning how to sign 🤟