Hey Signers!
Before we begin, let me share some exciting news!
Our summer intensive enrollment is now open,
Now to our video.
Hey Signers!
I am going to share with you the top five questions
I was asked when attending deaf chats early on.
Our hope is this will help you
take that next step to attend that deaf chat in your area.
Now let's learn how to sign.
First,
what is a deaf chat?
This might be also referred to as silent chats or deaf coffees.
The idea is that it's a scheduled time for the deaf
community to get together face to face and catch up.
During this time, they might share the happenings
in the deaf community or share information that can benefit each other.
You can find local deaf chats in your area by contacting
your local interpreting agency, school for the Deaf,
Deaf Church or colleges that offer ASL classes.
Once you have found where and when the deaf chat is, then go.
This is where you might see these five questions
I typically saw in my first year of my interpreting program.
Okay, so what are these five questions?
Well, the first one that's going to be asked is what is your name?
It's pretty typical, right?
So with this, they might sign
you name what you?
Your name, what? or name what?
You can see all of those variations.
The reason for these variations are because each deaf person
might sign it a different way,
just like in English. When we ask somebody, how are you?
or what's up? We're meaning the same thing.
So how would you respond to this?
Well, you just finger spell your name.
Here's a bonus tip.
When you see somebody's finger spelling their name
and then sign
after it,
they are showing you their sign name.
And remember,
only a deaf person can give you your sign name.
It is considered rude to ask for one.
Question number two. Are you hearing?
Are you deaf? Are you hard of hearing?
So here are some variations of how they might be asking you.
You are hearing you?
Deaf you?
You hard of hearing you?
If you didn't catch it, here are the signs for hearing,
deaf or hard of hearing.
So how would you respond to this?
Yes, hearing me, or no
Hard of hearing me.
Question number three.
They might ask if you have deaf in your family.
The reason for this is wanting to know
if their connections of people they already know to you.
So this is how they might ask.
Family deaf
have you? Or family
deaf or family?
deaf, question, question.
This is where you can sign, no,
none or yes,
and then sign who is deaf in your family.
Question number four.
They're going to ask you why are you learning ASL?
They want to know the reason why you are learning their language
and wanting to be involved.
So they might ask it like this.
ASL learn why?
We realize there's a lot of responses for this.
It could be friend deaf,
which could also be a coworker or a family member,
an employee.
Then it could be want to become interpreter
or just enjoying the language, whatever it is for you.
Be prepared to answer this question.
Question number five. They might ask you
who is your teacher or where are you learning?
The questions might look like, teacher who?
Learn where?
Your response could be the college that you're attending
or the sign name of the teacher that you are learning from
or YouTube.
Yes. This is the same for YouTube.
Of course, these questions might vary in your own personal experience.
Just be prepared that these might come up.
Once you go to your first deaf chat,
don't stop.
Try your best.
Learn something new each time and make friends.
Using the language you are learning is only going to allow you to grow.
We also offer silent chats in our Accelerated Program.
You can find out about this feature and more at learnhowtosign.org
Until next time, keep learning how to sign 🤟