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Lesson 1 — Common and Proper Nouns
This is a working slice of Lesson 1. Watch the lecture, read the summary, take the five-question quiz at the bottom. The full lesson, the rest of the vocabulary, and the other eleven lessons open after you create an account.
Lecture
The pattern
A noun names a person, place, thing, quality, event, or idea. Every noun is either common (a general name — city, man, woman) or proper (a specific name — Pittsburgh, Jeff, Ann).
Most ASL common nouns are signed, but some are fingerspelled in full — the English word spelled letter by letter. Proper nouns are mostly fingerspelled too, with a few exceptions (established name signs, initialized signs for specific brands and places).
Common nouns, fingerspelled
SOFA, RIBS, OIL, GAS, ELBOW, AUDIT, PATIO. No standard sign, so you spell them.
Common nouns, signed
book, car, house, food, school. The whole word is a single sign.
Proper nouns
JULY, RITA, MARYLAND. Specific things — usually fingerspelled in full.
Months are proper nouns
The common noun month is signed. Each specific month is a proper noun, fingerspelled or abbreviated:
| Fingerspelled | Month |
|---|---|
| JAN | January |
| FEB | February |
| MARCH | March |
| APRIL | April |
| MAY | May |
| JUNE | June |
| JULY | July |
| AUG | August |
| SEPT | September |
| OCT | October |
| NOV | November |
| DEC | December |
Transcription conventions
You'll see these throughout the course. They're how we write ASL on the page.
| Symbol | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| UPPERCASE | Fingerspelled | GARY, SOFA, JULY |
| lowercase | Glossed sign | book, car, house |
# prefix | Lexicalized fingerspelled sign | #OK, #JOB |
| Initial cap, rest lowercase | Initialized sign | Philadelphia |
A five-question preview quiz
Five questions from the full Lesson 1 quiz. Type your answer in CAPS and press Check answer. Three answers are camera-friendly in the paid course — in the preview, everything is typed.
The camera mechanic, in plain English. In the full course, about a quarter of Lesson 1's answers can be fingerspelled into your camera — the recognizer reads sixteen letters from your hand and submits them. The rest fall back to typing. Same credit, same mastery either way. No frames ever leave your device. Camera mode unlocks after sign-in.
We don't store your preview answers. Refresh this page to start over with a clean slate. The full course tracks mastery, awards CEUs (interpreter track), and passes grades back to your school's LMS over LTI 1.3.
What's next
Lessons 2 through 12 cover verbs, superordinate nouns, compound words, abbreviations, acronyms, states and cities, adjectives, lexicalized signs, initialized signs, mixed forms, and specialized vocabulary. Five comprehensive practices punctuate the course. See the full curriculum →