The ASL App

The signers do a good job. However, the app itself is dot very well organized and makes it hard to learn from. I’m just starting to learn and there are lots of pieces here that would be useful, ABCs, for example. There are even different ways of viewing the ABCs - just the hand, the hand with the person’s shoulder (to see more of the arm movement for certain letters), or the hand and the face. The problem is that they go through the entire alphabet in one go, you can’t pick a single letter to practice. Furthermore, if you want to have it repeat a certain letter it repeats the entire scene, back to A again. And there’s no “pause” button. This makes learning very frustrating. The topic based sections are also well signed, but again suffer from navigation problems - there’s no way of seeing a list of all phrases in a section, you have to page through each one at a time. I do like the fact there’s a turtle / slow mode which affects all videos, but it isn’t clear that when you play a video and want to replay it that you must then click the turtle button, not the regular repeat button. In short, the UI needs a lot of work to be usable, and I hope some day it will be. Until then, I’ll be looking for another app.

I can’t really pull myself to understand why this app doesn’t take its time to have at least a religious category. Signs like “Jesus” and “God” are essential for a $10 in app purchase. The app tools it’s time to make an LGBTQ category because the ASL app wants to teach us that equality is only necessary when convenient to them. It is not that hard to expand the dictionary that you’re app has by adding signs like God, Buddha, Islam, Koran, Bible, gospel, and covenant. Things like that will be worth you’re wile. Overall this is a helpful app but not helpful when you might as well look up most things on google. I would like to have my learning in one place. Thank You the ASL app for taking my opinion into consideration!

I love that this app has Deaf creators. There are a variety of lessons for conversational ASL on different subjects. The app is easily searchable and has different Deaf people presenting the ASL lessons that help students see a variety & nuance of ASL. Presenters are engaging & help students understand ASL is more than just what hands are doing. Phrases are translated to English captions as they are signed so that differences in grammar & sentence structure can be understood. They also have an excellent Instagram account for receptivity practice that goes beyond what is taught in the app. Excellent start for those beginning ASL or looking to brush up if you are out of practice. I found the $10 to be more than reasonable especially as more units get added.

How can you people complain about $10 for knowledge. I always wanted to learn ASL but never made it a priority. When I found out I had to have a medical procedure that laid me up for a week, I said what a great opportunity. I went to five used book stores and bought all I could on ASL. Then a new book store and bought one more. I was looking forward to my week of learning. I am a mechanic and work on Deaf people’s car from time to time. I can’t wait to surprise them. My weekly tool bill for the personal tools I buy is $130. That’s every WEEK. $10 is relatively cheap for me. I got my monies worth from the free stuff before I bought the extra.

One app alone, no matter how great, will never be able to teach all the complexities and nuances of a language and it's culture. But this is a great tool to add on my journey towards mastery. $10 is worth it seeing that I still haven't been able to get through learning all the videos yet after 4 months but I can always go back too look again. I also spent $10 on chipotle the other day so I figure a learning app is more useful and long lasting. Also need to point out, out of the multitudes of videos teaching hundreds of signs, the people who decided of focus on the single foul sign or the occasional "useful" fun signs need to take a chill pill.