Signing Savvy, Your Sign Language Resource

One thing that many new signers struggle with is how to show tense (past, present and future) while signing. In ASL, you don't sign words like went or going or suffixes like "ing", "ed" or "s".

By including the sign NOW at the beginning of a sentence, you can clarify the sentence is in the present tense.

By including the sign PAST or BEFORE (the open hand waves back over the shoulder in a single motion) at the beginning of a sentence, you can change the meaning of the sentence from present to past.

Alternatively, you can make the sentence show past tense by adding the sign FINISH to the end OR the beginning of the sentences.

You can make the sentence show future tense by adding the sign NEXT to the beginning of the sentences.

To summarize, in ASL we use the following signs to clarify the tense:

• NEXT to show FUTURE TENSE
• PAST/BEFORE or FINISH to show PAST TENSE
• NOW to show PRESENT TENSE

The time of the day that the signer is signing the phrase can effect how the sentence is interpreted, even though the words/signs are exactly the same.

For example, if the sentence below was signed in the morning, the interpretation would be as shown: "Tonight, I will eat dinner."

But if the same sentence was signed late in the evening, its' interpretation would be: "Tonight, I ate dinner".

As you can see, communicating tense can be a tricky thing sometimes. My recommendation is to pay attention to how others sign tenses and consciously practice it as you sign.

One of the most common questions I get from people who are first learning sign language is, "How do you remember so many new words? It's overwhelming!" It is; and unless you plan on incorporating it into your everyday life, it won't stick with you.

Often sign language instructors will divide sign vocabulary up into categories like household items, food, family, colors, shapes etc... Doing this helps you to categorize the words and file them into your memory bank that way. As you are using Signing Savvy to learn, create your own word lists to categorize the signs you are learning or look into the many, many shared word lists that others have already created. This categorization of vocabulary will be very helpful to you in your learning.

Also, start with the words that are a part of your everyday life, the words with which you will have constant interaction. Then using the printing feature from Signing Savvy, print out little cheat sheet photos that you can place around the house on those everyday items. You will be surprised how quickly you will memorize the signs for these words.

Then later, because you have already created the word lists, you will be able to give yourself a quiz online to be able to sharpen those skills even more.

If you have others that live with you, see if they will help you practice both your receptive (you receiving the sign from others) and expressive skills (you signing the words to others). It is this constant interaction that will improve your learning experience.