At the radio station where I work, we have recently employed a new cleaner, who is both deaf and mute. Because she has a habit of turning on her hoover at the least opportune moments, I figure it would be handy to learn at least enough British Sign Language to say "shut up, we're on the air!"
However, I'm not finding it easy. One of my problems is watching the videos of a person signing, and trying to mirror them, which of course leads to me signing everything in reverse.
I think a helpful learning aid would be a three dimentional rendering of a person signing each word I need to learn. I could spin the figure around and change my viewpoint so as to see each sign/move from an angle which suited me. If the pesron was transparent, I would be able to almost view the signing from a first person perspective.-- Fishrat, May 19 2008 [hippo], http://www.gatech.e...release.html?id=168like this, perhaps? [neutrinos_shadow, May 19 2008] Nice idea - you really need a pair of animatronic hands which you can send simple text messages to (by USB, bluetooth, etc.) which would then convert them to BSL.-- hippo, May 19 2008 Marv, hippo. Marv.-- Fishrat, May 19 2008 ...or videos shot from the viewpoint of the signer. If shot in front of a "green screen", you could put the signer in different situations where what she's signing is appropriate (or not).-- phoenix, May 19 2008 Great link, [neutrino]-- hippo, May 20 2008 dimentional, pesron sp... The vacuum cleaner must have been on :-)-- xenzag, May 20 2008 I used to have a similar problem, as i found myself signing reversed back to front, so my signs were facing me rather than the person with whom i was trying to talk. I sometimes wonder if i also speak like that.
(Oh, it was a fly on the screen)-- nineteenthly, May 21 2008 random, halfbakery