These New Gifs Will Teach You Sign Language
You probably never thought you could learn a new language while scrolling through Twitter, but it’s 2017 and nothing is like you though it would be. Thanks to a new library from Giphy, we’re entering the wild world of learning languages via GIF and it’s awesome.
Mashable reports Giphy released a library of American Sign Language GIFs designed to help more people learn the language. This release is not only a very tech-forward way to teach a language, but it’s also an amazing way to promote inclusivity for the sign language community.
The GIFs are thanks to a partnership with Sign With Robert, a sign language learning program. The library is filled with GIFs of Robert DeMayo, Sign With Robert creator, signing tons of words, all broken into categories like food, holidays, emotions, dates, and many more. Since they’re on a loop, a producer from Sign With Robert told Mashable this makes GIFs the perfect medium for teaching sign language, since learning happens when we see something repeated over and over.
“GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language,” Hilari Scarl, director and producer at Sign With Robert, told Mashable.“The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it’s perfect for learning new signs. doesn’t require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat.”
You Can Easily Find The Library On Giphy By Searching Sign With Robert
Wallis Millar-Blanchaer, a video artist at Giphy, and Stephanie Weber, a Giphy studios coordinator came up with the concept when they decided to brainstorm ideas about how to use GIFs to facilitate a more inclusive type of education.
“Wallis suggested sign language GIFs in an initial brainstorm, which we immediately stuck with, as it’s such a visually engaging language and would be well expressed in GIF form,” Weber said. “And the looping format makes it a perfect tool for learning through repetition.”
Giphy partnered with Sign With Robert to cut existing videos into individual words and phrases, which were chosen by looking at Giphy users top search terms.
Easily Learn Sign Language By Studying These Gifs
Forget emoji. GIFs are the latest communication trend, and now one of the easiest ways to communicate and learn sign language.
Giphy, a platform that hosts the worlds largest library of animated GIFs, just released a massive collection of sign language GIFs. Acted by sign language expert Robert DeMayo, users can search, share and learn more than 2,000 words in American Sign Language.
GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language, Hilari Scarl, director and producer at Sign With Robert, told Mashable. The looping format makes it a perfect tool for learning through repetition. The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so its perfect for learning new signs. doesnt require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat, she said.
The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so its perfect for learning new signs.
Text messaging is already one of the most preferred platforms for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but these GIFs give an extra layer of emotion to written conversations. Rather than using face time or filming oneself preforming sign language, users can just send one of the prerecorded GIFs.
Read more: Why Im learning sign language as an oral, profound deafie
American Sign Language is the most popularly used language of the Deaf communities in the United States, Canada, West Africa and Southeast Asia, according to Wikipedia.
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Can Deaf People Talk On The Phone
It depends on what you mean by talk.
If they can voice they can technically talk. If their hearing loss is minor, they might be able to. Hearing aids don’t work too well with electronics sometimes.
There is TTY — it was texting before texting was cool. You’d say GA when you were done typing to indicate it was the other person’s turn. You can’t interrupt on a TTY because it’ll just give you garbledy-goop. The TTY is outdated. You can just text.
Now there’s VRS. Wahoo. VRS = Video Relay Service.
I covered lots more ridiculousness in the post 13 Things to Never Say to a Deaf Person .
Otherwise you might find me behind you.
with a smidge of mocking
and snickering.
Tweet: Your ASL questions answered in GIFs
When you are asked ridiculous questions how do you respond?
Giphy Launches Library Of More Than 2000 Gifs To Teach You Sign Language
GIFs can do more than add a sassy quip to the end of your tweet. Now, they can even help you learn a new language.
Giphy released an extensive GIF library on Thursday with more than 2,000 words and phrases in American Sign Language. To create the GIFs, Giphy cut videos from the popular educational series Sign With Robert, adding text descriptions to make the GIFs look like looping flash cards.
At first glance, the GIFs might seem a bit unremarkable they simply show Sign with Robert creator Robert DeMayo, who has been deaf since birth, signing a word over and over.
But these GIFs weren’t created to showcase the same theatrics we’re used to seeing in the most captivating animations. They were designed to teach hearing people ASL and to empower the Deaf community.
“GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language,” said Hilari Scarl, director and producer at Sign With Robert.
“The looping format makes it a perfect tool for learning through repetition.”
“The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it’s perfect for learning new signs. doesn’t require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat,” she said.
Users can find the GIFs by searching “Sign With Robert” within Giphy. They’ll also appear in regular search results so if you search “Hello,” for example, a Sign With Robert GIF will show up.
Via Giphy
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Whoa: You Can Now Learn Sign Language Online Using Gifs
Nowadays, you can do pretty much anything online, language learning included . Websites and apps like Duolingo will teach you everything from basic vocabulary to the best pickup lines to use in French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Italian, just to name a few.
Now theres a super easy way to learn the basics of sign language too: GIFs. Robert DeMayo is an ASL consultant and educator and one of the four stars of See What Im Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary. He teaches ASL using DVDs and online streaming, and now hes begun to grow a following on GIPHY, too. There, you can find him demonstrating everyday expressions, questions, vocabulary, and more. DeMayos instruction is particularly useful when you need need to
ask someone if theyre okay.
Tell someone you dont like something
Ask to borrow something
or, , talk about your love of avocados.
The main categories of Roberts GIF tutorials include date and time, weather, expressions, emotions, lifestyle, sports, food and cooking, holidays, transportation and travel, emergency and disaster, people and family, and education. Or, if you want to just see everything all at once, you can opt to do that too.
These GIFs wont tell you EVERYTHING you need to know, but they will give you a great head start. Vocabulary and common sayings will get you far as will an ability to talk about Twitter and Instagram .
Would you learn ASL? What do you think of using GIFs to do it? Tell us !
Giphy Launches A Library Of American Sign Language Gifs
Giphy recently released a collection of GIFs featuring words in American Sign Language, Mashable reports. The 2,000-GIF library is meant to serve as a resource for people who want to learn sign language and those who already rely on it to communicate.
As Mashable points out, the GIFs are all pulled from an educational series called Sign With Robert, starring actor and ASL consultant Robert DeMayo. Rather than serve as a pithy reaction or a visual joke, the ASL GIFs are creating an educational experience by taking advantage of the GIF format.
Perfect for the GIF format
“GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language,” Hilari Scarl, Sign With Roberts director, told Mashable. Scarl also points out that a GIFs constant repetition makes it useful for a person trying to pick up new language skills.
Right now the collection includes GIFs for simple words and phrases like party, weather, color, and Forth of July. Giphy determined which words to release first based on the terms its users most frequently searched for, but it plans to keep expanding the collection in the future.
Giphy has always focused on making GIFs even morefun for users, but the ASL collection proves that the company recognizes the potential for the GIF to be a powerful language tool.
The library will appear in Giphys regular search results.
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How Are You In Sign Language
Learn how to sign how are you in ASL to begin a meeting with a pleasant greeting!
1. This is a two part sign. First sign the word how by placing both fists together, thumbs up, and rolling your hands forward so the palms end up facing up and the fingers are slightly curled in.2. Next sign you simply by pointing at the person you are addressing.3. Together these two pieces make up How are you? This sign can also mean How are you doing?
Teaching Tips to learn how to sign how are you in ASL
Create activities for children that encourage good manners! Begin by signing How are you? and then asking your child to reply with how they feel and then sign back to you. If youre in a classroom, let children take turns greeting one another this way.
- Children learn best by observing! So model this sign in your own interactions everyday. You can exchange the greeting with your spouse or partner each morning and evening, or maybe even people in your community. Your little one will soon mimic what he sees.
Transcript:How are you? Or, How are you doing? First, sign how. Put your fingers together, thumbs up, and then roll them forward. How. Then point: you. How are you? How are you?!
Greetings In Sign Language
Learn how to express greetings in sign language and ASL culture. The most common greetings in ASL are hi and hello.
Simply express “hi”. It’s very commonly used in everyday use.
Another way is the sign hello. A Deaf signer may sign “hello” in a formal scenario .
The ASL sign glossed as HI doesn’t always translate into English “hi” but sometimes “hello”. There is a variation of intonation.
Sometimes, when a Deaf friend hasn’t seen his/her dear friend for a long time, they might sign HELLO with some intonation. It’s equivalent to “big hello”.
For a beginner, just be familiar with these two signs. There are several variations of “hi” and “hello” that learners may observe over time at Deaf social events.
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In Order To Ensure The Accuracy Of The Signs The Sign With Robert Team Reviewed And Approved Each Gif
The exaggerated facial expressions are an essential component of ASL.
“Many people misunderstand the facial expressions of sign language users and think of them as being ‘animated’ or ’emoting,'” Scarl said. “Facial expressions are an important part of grammatical information and the linguistic structure of ASL. Facial expressions distinguish between interrogative and declarative sentences, modify adverbs, convey emotional tone, define spatial relationships and much more.”
There are approximately one million deaf people living in America, and this new manner of learning ASL will undoubtedly reach a large audience thanks to Giphys popularity.
Giphy Made 2000 Gifs To Help You Learn Sign Language
A GIF can be more than a well-timed punchline for a tweet or group chat. Now, the looping clips can be used to teach people new languages. As Mashable reports, GIF provider Giphy has launched a new “channel” containing more than 2,000 educational sign language clips. They’re all dead simple: just the hand movements and a text caption explaining what they mean. These bite-sized flash cards have been pulled from Sign With Robert, an instructional series for American Sign Language . The hope is that people will pick up a word or two by sharing them at convenient moments online.
“The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it’s perfect for learning new signs,” Hilari Scarl, director and producer for Sign With Robert said. “It doesn’t require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat.”
It’s unlikely that you’ll learn sign language through GIFs alone. But it’s a clever way of promoting a truly life-changing skill, and could encourage more people to study the language in greater depth. For many, Giphy is the go-to GIF repository, so there’s a good chance these loops will surface as people conduct their usual searches. Sign language GIFs have been done before, but now they’re more likely to have a real impact on the web.
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Why Are Deaf People So Loud
What do you mean so loud? You mean you can hear them when they sign? I hear you when you talk. Same thing.
Oh, you mean they stomp around and slam cabinets and slurp? Well, they don’t do that. Well, I guess some Deaf do. I’ve only seen it in their homes or if they were kids. I can say the same with hearing people. Take my family: we’re super loud.
They can’t always tell how loud something is. You can only tell your volume by the strength of the vibrations in your throat.
The Gifs Were Created By Cutting Videos From The Educational Series Sign With Robert Complete With Text Descriptions That Make Them Look Like Looping Flash Cards
“GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language,” said Hilari Scarl, director and producer at Sign With Robert told Mashable.
“The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it’s perfect for learning new signs. doesn’t require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat,” Scarl explained.
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You Can Now Learn Sign Language By Watching Gifs
If youve been thinking of learning a new language, you dont need to look any further than an unexpected but beloved website. You can now learn sign language on Giphy, because the site is good for more than just finding the perfect GIF to accompany your witty Facebook status or tweet. On Thursday, Giphy released a library of 2,000 GIFs featuring different words and phrases from American Sign Language.
Connecting With The Deaf Community One Cup At A Time
Coffee has a language all its own.
During a coffee tasting, participants delve deep into the world of coffees by comparing aroma, acidity, body, flavor and growing regions.
In Burlington, Vermont, barista Kevin Richmond set up a series of socials that have brought together Deaf and hearing customers over coffee. Each month, between 40 and 80 customers participate in the coffee socials using ASL. The events rotate between four Starbucks stores in the area.
I felt it was so important to gather people and be social, said Richmond, who is Deaf. I believe Starbucks is a great place to do that.
The events offer a place for people in the Deaf community to gather, and helps ASL students from the nearby University of Vermont program improve their signing skills and experience Deaf culture. It also helps Starbucks partners learn how to communicate with customers using sign language.
Our coffee socials show people that Starbucks values the diversity of its customers and partners, he said. I hope all customers feel welcome and learn our beautiful language and culture.
The company presented Richmond with the Spirit of Starbucks Award , which recognizes partners who make exceptional contributions in their stores and communities while embracing Starbucks Mission and Values.
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Now You Can Learn Sign Language With Gifs
Learning sign language just got easier. World renowned educator Robert DeMayo recently announced a major collaboration with GIPHY, the worlds largest library of animated GIFs. Together, they launched about 2,000 GIFs, representing words and phrases of American sign language.
As reported by Mashable, each GIF features DeMayo looping a certain word, emotion, object, phrase or event, some more simple or evident than the others. The looping format makes it a perfect tool for learning through repetition, said Hilari Scarl, director and producer at Sign With Robert, to Mashable. This not only benefits millions of deaf and hard of hearing Americans who utilize sign language, but also doctors, nurses, police and emergency workers who could save someones life by knowing a few signs.
Still, it was much harder to achieve the required accuracy in the images than initially expected. In our initial cut for the GIF for bachelorette party, we unintentionally and unknowingly had edited it in a way that looked like the women were being called bitches,’ said Millar-Blanchaer, a video artist at GIPHY, and Stephanie Weber, a GIPHY studios coordinator.
GIPHY plans to continue growing the library of GIFs for learning sign langue. Its great to see that the animation platform is being used for more than a whimsical response to your friends latest Facebook post.