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.