Customer Reviews

Signing Made Easy (A Complete Program for Learning Sign Language. Includes Sentence Drills and Exercises for Increased Comprehension and Signing Skill)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have used and taught sign language for almost 10 years now. One of the main problems I used to have with books for instruction was the lack (or shortage) of exercises for "receiving" (or reading) sign language. This book is an excellent source of "receiving exercises" for new students of sign language to get used to interpreting signs from other people BEFORE actually being placed in that situation with real people. I have found that this greatly reduces the stress of initial experiences with receiving sign language from others. This is especially important since receiving is HALF of any type of communication.Of course, this book is also an excellent instructional resource for learning how to sign to other people effectively. Therefore, I highly recommend this book whether it is used in a class or by an individual! In fact, I am getting ready to begin teaching another beginner's sign language class and this is the book my students will be using!

If you're looking to learn the natural language of the culturally Deaf population in America, this book is definitely a waste of your time and money. If, however, what you want is to communicate with deaf elementary school children who use Signed English, this is a good option. Many do not understand that American Sign Language is a FOREIGN language and NOT English words in sign. ASL is as different from English as Russian or Japanese. But most do not know this prior to searching out a sign language reference book.

This book is filled with good illustrations of English signs, formulated into English sentences. An example would be: "I need to go to the store, because I'm all out of milk." That's English and this book shows you the sign for every word...in that order. However, if you were to sign true ASL, it would be glossed as: STORE-NEED-GO-I-WHY?-MILK-ALL GONE. So just be warned that, if you get this book, you will not be learning the actual *language* of signs.

That being said, this book has potential and the author, Flodin, has written several other books that are highly recommended. But as far as signing books go, this one doesn't rise to the occasion. That's just this deafie's opinion. :o)

As a brand new student of ASL who hopes to become an interpreter I was looking for a book that tought ASL in ASL sentence structure - this book does not! It is clearly signed English, so if that is what you are looking for, this book seems quite good. Otherwise, don't buy it!!

The theory of this "program" is sound and using it has increased my confidence in being able to communicate using sign, but not in the grammatical sense.

Chapters begin with a "Practice Learning Signs" section illustrating different sentences, with the sentences printed underneath.(+) The bottom of each page gives brief descriptions of any new signs introduced (usually)... It is essential to read these because the arrows don't always show the move-direction as described or the picture merges in with that of the next/previous sign so it is hard to tell the two apart(-). Both simple and "complex" words are used so you aren't endlessly reviewing simple "apple, box, cat" exercises (+).

This section is followed a few other practice / review areas (sign this sentence, match the sign to the word, etc.) The last section of each chapter is "Practice Receiving Signs".

"Practice Receiving Signs" could be the most essential part of the book, but it fails to reach its potential. The phrases are VERBATIM the phrases of the first "Learning Signs" section. Once you've gone through it a once, you don't need the illustrations to recite the phrases, so you are learning less than you are memorizing (-). In future editions the authors should consider some variety between the "Learning Signs" and the "Receiving signs" sections.

My goal is to learn American Sign Language to communicate effectively within the Deaf community, but this book shows Signed English (exact word order) rather than ASL. Imagine taking a German sentence, for instance, and translating each word to English but not changing the word order and not taking into account words that should be left out or added. With concentration, you'll probably understand... but is vocabulary all you really want to know when learning a language? If you are serious about learning ASL, this book may steer you in the wrong direction (-)... there are better books than this for learning ASL such as <i>A Basic Course in American Sign Language</i>.

Because of its ease of use, this book is appropriate if you are a casual learner of signing or specifically only want to learn Signed English.

[Note: This review has changed after a year of studying other books on ASL.]

I "cut my teeth" in American Sign Language using this excellent book. As a stand alone resource, however, I found myself needing more so I bought Martin L.A. Sternberg's Dictionary and the two together are dynamite!

Butterworth & Flodin's book is easy to understand and will have you signing in not time. I highly recommend it.

This book is good for learning about the basic signs, but for me it was too easy for me to 'sneak a peak' when I would take a test at the end of the chapter. It told the basics of ASL, but not the indepth things that I was looking for. There are several books that are on the market these days, but this book is not too highly recommended by me. I thought it was alright for someone who wanted to 'touch up' on the ASL subject so that they don't get too rusty. But if your looking for something to teach you how to sign from the very beginning, then you need not get this book.

I realize that there are inherent problems in learning sign language from a book, and in all fairness this book does as well as any can to teach sign language effectively.

The practice exercises to improve one's signing proficiency are quite well done. My only gripe is that they follow the sample texts a little too closely; I'd prefer to practice on new, unfamiliar sentences with the same vocabular so that I could be sure to really understand the language, and not just rely on rote memorization. And the sign-recognition exercises simply don't work in book form. There needs to be an accompanying video so one can actually watch signs being made.

I also wished for a more comprehensive discussion for signed grammar. There is some mention of it in the introduction, but not nearly enough attention is paid to one of the most interesting aspects of ASL. This is not a fault, exactly, as the text seems geared more towards Signed English than ASL. But I imagine that some from the Deaf community may find this a bit offensive.

What I find offensive, though, are other signs of bias in the book. Canada, Israel, and the United States seem to be the only countries that appear in this book (as well as the state of California). The signs for Christian, Jesus, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, are all present, but absolutely no mention is made of Muslims, Jews, or atheists. The authors, I'm sure, meant the vocabulary in this book to give only the very basics necessary to get a conversation going, but it's unavoidable. The geographic and religioius bias is there.

In short, Signing Made Easy is an adequate introduction to sign language. It will get you up to a rudimentary knowledge of ASL or Signed English fairly quickly, but you'll soon want to invest in either a dictionary or a full-fledged class to be truly fluent.

As a conversational level signer, I had many problems with this book. The edition I have is too old and some of the signs are no longer relevant. The book does not address the issue of ASL versus Signed English/Pidgin Sign at all. If you want to sign with deaf people, this book does not give you the knowledge you need. If you just want to learn new vocabulary there are better books out there. The book lacks advice on how to fingerspell well.


The book wasn't "bad" or "awful." It just had too many drawbacks in today's world where there are so many other options for learningsign language. I wouldn't advise you to purchase this one.

Having tried some other books to start learning ASL, and having ended up with nothing more than a random collection of signs, and no way to carry on a conversation, I found this book. Within a couple of weeks I've found my ability to form sentences and concepts has improved dramatically. While a book cannot teach you ASL all by itself, this is a wonderful place to start so you don't feel completely lost.

My 9 year old daughter and I love this book. we use it as an addition to our American Sign Language video tape. Signing Made Easy contains over 3000 signs.