EASY in Sign Language

The words for 'easy' in most spoken languages and signed languages are kind of easy like "easy" in English, "facile" in French, "einfach" in German, "lehko" in Ukrainian, "laykht" in Yiddish, and and this one in ASL.

Printable ASL sign for EASY
Printable

How easy is it to learn sign language? Answer soon.

ASL sign for EASY

What is the sign for 'easy' in American Sign Language?

Definition: Achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties.

Pronunciation (sign description): Dominant bent-flat hand (handshape), half behind non-dominant bent-flat hand (location), palms facing in (orientation), tips of dominant hand flicks twice on back of fingers of non-dominant hand.

Deaf signers do inflect this base of word to convey synonyms such as "too easy", "easy!", "so easy", and so on.

Vocabulary

Synonyms: easy as pie/peasy, EFFORTLESS, FACILE, PAINLESS, SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, SMOOTH,UNCOMPLICATED, no sweat, USER-FRIENDLY.

Opposite: HARD and DIFFICULT.

Deaf Humor

How is it easy to learn sign language? See the comics below for a short answer or the article for a long version.

easy learning
Image with permission from Matt and Kay Daigle. thatdeafguy.com

Again and again, a hearing person thinks that learning a signed language is easy. Sure, for the first few signs or several signs (no different for any spoken languages) up to the beginner level.

And, not to mention grammar.

Hey, where are you going? Learning grammar is inevitable.

Then after that, you sweat all the way to the interpreting level after several years. This fluent level is about halfway away from the native level. It's still difficult to interpret for a native-level, fast-talking, culturally Deaf who was born into and grew up in a Deaf family, Deaf community, and Deaf schools which is a minority of a minority. :)

Contrary to the assumption, signed languages are not easier to learn than spoken languages.

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First 100 words.

  1. again
  2. also
  3. ask
  4. bad
  5. boy
  6. but
  7. can
  8. come
  9. deaf
  10. different
  11. drink
  12. drive
  13. eat
  14. email
  15. excuse
  16. family
  17. feel
  18. few
  19. find
  20. fine
  21. fingerspell
  22. finish
  23. food
  24. for
  25. forget
  26. friend
  27. get
  28. girl
  29. give
  30. go
  31. good
  32. have, has, had
  33. he
  34. hearing
  35. hello
  36. help
  37. home
  38. how
  39. Internet
  40. know
  41. later
  42. like (feeling)
  43. little
  44. live
  45. man
  46. many
  47. me
  48. meet
  49. more
  50. my
  51. name
  52. need
  53. new
  54. no
  55. not
  56. now
  57. ok, okay
  58. old
  59. other
  60. please
  61. remember
  62. same
  63. say
  64. school
  65. see
  66. she
  67. should
  68. sign, signed word
  69. slow
  70. some
  71. sorry
  72. store
  73. take
  74. tell
  75. text, sms
  76. thank, thank you
  77. their
  78. they
  79. think
  80. time
  81. tired
  82. try
  83. understand
  84. use
  85. wait
  86. want
  87. what
  88. when
  89. where
  90. which
  91. who
  92. why
  93. will
  94. with
  95. woman
  96. work
  97. write
  98. yes
  99. you
  100. your

As you feel more comfortable with the first few hundreds of ASL signs, progress further with your vocabulary and learn signing more.