If you are an ASL student, you know that fingerspelling is one thing, but being able to understand someone else’s fingerspelling is quite another. Perhaps you’ve had this experience:

A Deaf person fingerspells something and you catch the first letter.. maybe the second, then poof–it’s gone. Your brain scrambles as you try to figure out all the words that could possibly start with those two letters, filling in the blanks you missed. 

I have to tell you, Deaf people know when you don’t understand us.  We invented bluffing, alright?

Just remember:  ALL of us need repeats. Totally normal. Get comfortable asking for them. You’ll need them when working on this skill especially.

Like in spoken languages, understanding native or more advanced signer’s ASL is tricky. But understanding someone else’s fingerspelling (called receptive fingerspelling) is that much more nuanced, largely because it requires several skills to work together at once. 

As an ASL teacher I’m often asked, “How can I understand fingerspelling better?” So, I wanted to share my best receptive fingerspelling tips, from a Deaf perspective.

 

Why is it Hard for ASL Students to Understand Fingerspelling? 

There are a lot of reasons for this but from my own observations I see that Deaf and hearing people naturally have different approaches to understanding fingerspelled words.

Different focus areas

Hearing people learning ASL as a second language may naturally place their focus on the ‘details’ of fingerspelling, which makes sense logically, but it may cause someone to focus too narrowly on hands/fingers for fingerspelling.  I know that sounds weird because, hello, where else would you focus? 

But truthfully, fingerspelling comprehension comes from a few different things. 

Understanding Fingerspelling Comes From Inference

I feel like a lot of understanding comes from inference.  This is the case for fingerspelling, too. What can be inferred from things connected to the conversation, topic or environment? This helps us get ready for what we will take in through fingerspelling. 

Fingerspelling Tools Give Mixed Messages

We then blow these points out of the water by pointing to automated internet fingerspelling practice tools which have you narrowly focus on hands/fingers and give no context. We’re funny like that.

Actually, I feel like these tools can help when:

• a student is learning the ASL alphabet and wants to test their recall
• an advanced student wants to give themselves a super-challenge
• students are looking for drinking game ideas 

That’s about it. I don’t encourage students to practice this way often, because real fingerspelling on a person rarely looks like that. There’s just much more involved.

Deaf People Have a Natural Advantage

Aside from many of us being more visually aware, Deaf people have another advantage in understanding fingerspelling.  As Deaf people in a hearing world, we’ve grown up adapting without all the information in spoken communication, therefore our development is more adaptive. We naturally look for other clues in the environment to aid comprehension rather than just focusing on what’s presented. 

So, rather than focusing harder, looking beyond the hand is one of the key aspects to improving your fingerspelling skills. 

How You Can Better Understand ASL Fingerspelling 

While I get questions most often about receptive skills (understanding), as I said in another article about expressive skills, fingerspelling really is a “holistic” practice. If you are an ASL student, you know fingerspelling works two ways.  And both should be practiced to increase fluency and comprehension.

Practice Your (Expressive) Fingerspelling 

First things first: practice your ABCs, expressively–your output. Doing this, especially in the mirror and with others will increase your own clarity, fluidity and confidence. This primes you for better receptive understanding.

Zoom Out

Rather than focusing specifically on hands and fingers, widen your view to see more of the signer’s signing space. You’ll get more context to aid your understanding. 

Doing this will allow you to see the fingerspeller’s:

• body language
• facial expressions 
• eye gaze (which may help to ‘point’ to what or whom they are referring)
• mouth morphemes, if present. Mouth Morphemes present as micro-mouth-movements the signer makes to accompany an ASL sign. It’s less standard in fingerspelling, though.   

But because expression varies among different signers, none of these will be a one-size-fits-all solution.

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Consider the Context

While you’re zoomed out in your field of vision, also consider the wider context of the scenario. 

• Your location, things nearby
• The event and people present
• Social construct or interactions
• Topics and discussions 
• Environment, weather 

You may still have none of this information if you’re going in cold, but most of the time, you will, so it’s worth keeping these ideas on speed dial.

Don’t Rely on Lipreading

Some Deaf and other ASL signers may seem like they are “mouthing” English words to accompany their ASL and fingerspelling, making them easy to lipread and thus understand what they are fingerspelling. But I will tell you, this isn’t a reliable practice, because:

• Not all Deaf or ASL signers do this, or even move their mouths when signing or fingerspelling.  So this technique would be limited to those who do. 
• Lipreading itself is fairly unreliable.
• If you are looking exclusively at their mouths, you will miss some fingerspelling taking place on their hands.
• If their mouth or face is covered in any way, you’ll feel that loss immediately.

I won’t pretend lipreading isn’t a thing, because it is.  But it will only help with understanding the fingerspelling of some people, some of the time, at best. So it’s important to practice receptive fingerspelling in a way that promotes comprehension even when the conditions are not optimal.

Variation and Flexibility

The thing is, signers are not always able to stay within a designated signing space in which others are able to take in and understand their fingerspelling. 

The signing space is ideal and should be utilized whenever possible for clarity, but I’m sure you realize, Deaf people have lives. So, certain circumstances can and will cause a variation of someone’s signing style or fingerspelling space or angle.

Parents, athletes or those with physical-type of jobs come to mind.  But really any of the following can potentially contribute:

• Person has their mouth full of food (and is being polite in keeping it closed–which is better than not, trust me)-obscuring mouth morphemes and facial expressions
• Person is moving around with their face or body language intermittently obscured (think running, getting kids ready, etc) 
• Person is driving (this gives them a different angle than you’re used to seeing, and they will not–or should not–be making eye contact with you)

You won’t be able to understand easily if your method relies on the signer only expressing the way that works best for you. So adapting by zooming out and considering context goes a long way.

Hearing ASL Students’ Methods

I will preface this by saying I do not personally use these methods to understand fingerspelling, but a few hearing ASL students have said the following tactics help them, so I wanted to include them here:

• Paying extra attention to the first and last letter fingerspelled and patching the middle together with the situation’s context – this could work if you have the context, but it could also lead to misunderstandings if relied on exclusively.
• ‘Sounding out’ fingerspelled word in your head – this also makes sense for a hearing person as a lot of people spell in written form this way.

Final Thoughts on Better Understanding ASL Fingerspelling

Understanding ASL fingerspelling is an art based on human expression and interpretation. It can also be a real learning curve to get to a comfortable point. For hearing students learning ASL as a second language, practicing receptive skills may make you think you are less skilled or are doing something wrong. 

But you have to remember, you are not used to not catching or misunderstanding stuff.  Deaf people are.  We’re just used to having to connect the dots faster. And we get more practice over a lifetime.

So, give yourself grace. 

Zoom out. Look for context. Practice with different people. Keep learning! Rinse and repeat. 

You’ll get there.  Cheers!