learn Auslan

I attended TAFE last year to study Business Administration Certificate II, and being part of a Virtual Enterprise (VE) (a business we students ran, learning how to run a business by working with other VEs), there was an event students could go to, called an Trade Fair. Basically, a big room(s) where different VEs set up stalls and their virtual products for others (VEs, public, schoolchildren) to buy. (I was at a friend’s b/day party. Would have loved to go.)

Because the Trade Fair was International, there was going to be a lot of cultures and also students from China there, so we were given a crash course on finger signing AUSLAN, as the deaf are also a culture.

I loved it, and now want to learn it and also communicate with people using AUSLAN (I am hearing.)

A good site is the Auslan Sign Bank, where you can view a finger spelling dictionary, and watch videos of words being signed while you try to guess what they are.
http://www.auslan.org.au/fingerspellingtwohanded.html

I’ve done Beginners and Intermediate sign when my son was diagnosed as deaf at 6 months old.
I’ve developed www.signplanet.net, along with others who know much more than me (such as paraprofessional interpreters), I’ve been the main programmer. It has video and outline images of the signs, games and songsheets. You can make your own worksheets and reminder sheets.
Because true Auslan has a different grammatical structure to English, I’ve started work on a grammar engine, like you can get for English-French, which will do English to Auslan. I already have 250 phrases, but have reached to limits of my knowledge

Auslan is such a fascinating and entertaining language to learn!
I am by no means fluent, but I can make basic conversation if everything is kept slow :)
I recommend this as a hobby if nothing else!

I have wanted to learn Auslan since i can remember. In primary school we had a book called the rainbow fish which had all the signs underneath the words and it was my fave book.. i was just so interested by it all.
Through my volunteer work i learned some very basic Auslan (Hi, how are you, my name is etc… and i can finger spell, but not so good at reading back). I have also done a course in Makaton. Makaton is often used with children and adults who can usually hear but who either cannot talk or whose speech is difficult to understand. I have also found that is sometimes used with the intellectively disabled.
I really want to do this, and i know i will one day when i’m not so busy with uni and work and stuff…

i am currently learning auslan and so far i am really enjoying it!!

I’ve always loved the idea of learning this language, though I don’t know anybody who signs. One day I’ll do it.

I don’t know any deaf people and never have, but I’m still very interested in learning this language. I’ve been wanting to learn Auslan since my first introductory lectures to my education degree 3 years ago. Even though I’m not longer studying teaching, I think knowing at least some Auslan would be an asset in any career path.

I hope everyone’s registered with http://www.auslan.org.au/

It’s an online Auslan dictionary, complete with videos of people making the signs.

6 months ago I started dating a Deaf person, so she’s been teaching me Auslan. So far I’ve got the 2-handed alphabet, numbers, and other random signs (e.g. what, sign, table, deaf, hearing, turtle, chicken, duck, cat, hour, minute, food, lunch…). I need to learn more so I’m not fingerspelling stuff all the time.

our lecturer for “language functions and analysis” organised a guest speaker for our lesson on sign language and deaf culture. she taught us the sign for turtle, which i in turn taught to my daughter. we have since found an excellent illustrated children’s Auslan dictionary and are learning plenty of fun and useful signs.