Sentence Structure and Vocab question - Food and Drink

[Ellie Russell]

Hi There,

I just spent a couple of hours learning the food and drink signs and phrases (Lesson 8). I am really struggling to get my head round how to phrase the questions and responses and phrases. E.g.

• When you ask a question, "are you Hungry?" it is 'You Hungry?" but when it's "what would you like to eat", it's "eat you want what?"...so sometimes the "you" (i.e. the subject of the phrase/question) is first and sometimes it's the verb? Whereas my instinct is always to sign "you like eat what?"...
• When you say you like or don't like something, in the lesson they structured it as e.g. "fish I like" but in the test the man signed "I like fish"...does it matter?
• I am confused by when to use want and when to use like...is it just preference? In the lesson the question "what would you like to eat?" is signed as "eat you want what?" not "eat you like what"....so I just get muddled by the mixing up of "want" and "like". 

 

[Niamh]

Hi! I think you're maybe adding in to many words when switching the structure from english to BSL?

e.g. when translating 'what do you want to eat' into BSL I'm likely to sign 'you eat what' or if you're asking what the preferred food is I'd sign 'you like eat what'.

I would be unsure what the correct structure would be for 'do you like to eat fish' but I'd sign 'you like fish eat?' 

I'd always rely on positive and negative indications from the person I'm chatting with, like nods/head shakes and facial expression. 

Does this help? If anyone can explain for easily I would be interested to read! Thanks

[Ellie Russell]

Thank you for your reply! I completely understand what you're saying about using shorter phrases/sentences to convey a longer English sentence. I think in the course, having taught us words like 'want' and 'like', the sentences were incorporating them e.g. "eat you want what?" specifically as opposed to just "eat you what?" which is where I was getting confused. 

It's interesting how different people choose to structure sentences in different ways it seems. I'll keep practicing!

Thank you!

[Rowan]

Hi

I'm a beginner, but in my last class my tutor told me it should be subject first in sentence structure and to try and imagine you are creating a film or picture for the other person. For example:

Car black drive = I drive a black car

Horse man jump on ride = A man jumped on a horse and rode away

So you would probably sign "fish you like"? 

I'm not sure how you would sign the difference between want and like but I'm going to ask in my next lesson as it is a good question.