Tips to remember vowels

[Jo1970]

I'm just starting to learn & I know my alphabet pretty well, but when I'm reading fingerspelling or fingerspelling myself, I struggle remembering my vowels in order. I'm not quick enough. 

Does anybody have any tips to remember the order of vowels, which will enable me to understand words faster?

Thank you

Edited January 19, 2019 by Jo1970
Misspelled a word

[Sarah Wal]

I am totally with you on this. It’s the only thing to slow me down! Did you learn anything to help? 🤗

[Scarabo]

I’m also a newbie and it’s a work in progress but:

A and U are easy as first and last.

E: i’m righthanded so the “letters” are on my left hand. If you look at your left hand the three middle fingers look like an E on its back, so the index finger is the top of the letter E.

I: the longest middle finger. Also - random fact that reminds me: i used to live in Italy where I was startled to find that certain letters are not used except in foreign words: letters j, k, y, and a few others were not even included in the Italian alphabet. There isn’t a natural sound that means J, they call it “Long I” because it’s like an I with a tail. The same is true in Sign: J is drawing along the middle finger and round to the thumb. So I is like short J!

And as for O, that one’s easy: it’s the finger with my wedding ring on, which is a nice visual mnemonic.

Though if anyone comes up with better ones, please tell! Those are just what I’ve come up with so far.

FWIW I’m also practicing with the Twinklefingers Fingerspelling app which is good for attempting to get my brain up to speed in those idle ten minutes on the bus...

[Sassenach1983]

On 30/01/2019 at 23:41, Scarabo said:

I’m also a newbie and it’s a work in progress but:

A and U are easy as first and last.

E: i’m righthanded so the “letters” are on my left hand. If you look at your left hand the three middle fingers look like an E on its back, so the index finger is the top of the letter E.

I: the longest middle finger. Also - random fact that reminds me: i used to live in Italy where I was startled to find that certain letters are not used except in foreign words: letters j, k, y, and a few others were not even included in the Italian alphabet. There isn’t a natural sound that means J, they call it “Long I” because it’s like an I with a tail. The same is true in Sign: J is drawing along the middle finger and round to the thumb. So I is like short J!

And as for O, that one’s easy: it’s the finger with my wedding ring on, which is a nice visual mnemonic.

Though if anyone comes up with better ones, please tell! Those are just what I’ve come up with so far.

FWIW I’m also practicing with the Twinklefingers Fingerspelling app which is good for attempting to get my brain up to speed in those idle ten minutes on the bus...

I am a beginner and find this quite useful I am fine fingerspelling myself but receptive skills are not really good. I am ok with the first few letters but if there are more than 6 letters I am lost, lol. Also I am German and not native to English language. I am fluent in English, though it is easier for me to read the word "George" for example and I know how to prounounce the name. But if words/names are fingerspelled to me, I find it (still) difficult to recognise them. I guess that I will improve by time.

[Maz De Ath]

On 19/01/2019 at 05:46, Jo1970 said:

I'm just starting to learn & I know my alphabet pretty well, but when I'm reading fingerspelling or fingerspelling myself, I struggle remembering my vowels in order. I'm not quick enough. 

Does anybody have any tips to remember the order of vowels, which will enable me to understand words faster?

Thank you

Vowels slow me down terribly but I'm practicing by reading random sentences from books, store signs, menus, webpages, anything really and ignoring the consonants and just signing the vowels as fast as I can. It's working for me ... hope this helps you too. 

[Miss Jamaica]

Hi

 everyone the best way to get improve is to practice with others which I would be happy to do.

Juliet

[Jon]

I am still slow with fingerspelling but generally get the vowels right when signing myself. I find reading someone else's fingerspelling quickly enough much more difficult - I've just started to concentrate on the position of their thumb to get the vowels right.

[DebbyS]

I've only just started the course and worried that my memory would not be good enough but I've just completed section 3 and surprised myself, got a long way to go though. I agree with the comment that A and U are easy but it's easy to struggle with remembering the others in the middle of trying to sign or read a sign. I found remembering the letter I was my tallest finger (like the letter) made it easier.