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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Sign Language | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Shelly
Publisher: Alpha
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $3.00
You Save: $13.95 (82%)
New (2) Used (21) from $3.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 469138
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0028623886
Dewey Decimal Number: 419
UPC: 021898623881
EAN: 9780028623887
ASIN: 0028623886
Publication Date: August 14, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: The book is clean but may have highlights.
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Product Description
You're no idiot, of course. You studied a foreign language, you can give good hand signals to a driver parallel parking, and you know when your boss is in a bad mood based on body language. But when it comes to using sign language, you feel like you're all thumbs. Don't throw up your hands yet! When you finish reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Sign Language, you'll have enough knowledge of the basic sign handshapes, grammar, and syntax to get started signing by yourself. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Not As Bad As Reported December 7, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have read the reviews on this book and they are all very low...too low. I am a teacher of ASL, have taught Deaf children for 10 years, have a Deaf foster son, have my masters in Deaf Education, etc. Needless to say I am in the Deaf community. I have found this book very helpful for my students and was looking to buy it for my sister when I saw the poor reviews.
I find the information on Deaf culture, history, etc. easy to read and right on. Having said that, the pictures are not very good. I find that ASL dictionaries are often wrong due to regional variations, ASL changes across time (like all languages do...think about it, 20 years ago no one knew what the word Internet would mean, but now...), and it is VERY hard to make something that is 3D understandable on something that is 2D. Therefore I would tell all people who are trying to buy an ASL dictionary to really think twice. DVDs, VHS and online dictionaries where you can see the movement of the sign are a MUCH better way to go. Dictionaries make for good reminders and if you are using this book to remind you how to sign something, it does a good job with the limited vocabulary it includes.
This book, however is not trying to con you into believing it is a dictionary. You know this but how much writing it has compared to pictures. As a textbook I find it great! I really love it. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because it does have a lot of line drawings that are not the best. I gave it a 4 for all of those poor people who are thinking they can do the impossible by learning to sign by reading a book. ASL just doesn't work that way.
 complete disappointment June 26, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I found the history of sign language and culture to be ok but beyond that the book was terrible. As a parent of a deaf child and trying to learn ASL I found nothing useful at all to help me learn to sign and speak the language which will become my child's. I was sorely disappointed that only a few paragraphs were available on the actual grammar of ASL.
As a beginner to ASL it was discouraging. I finished the book with less enthusiasm about learning it then when I had started and I am now unsure whether I would even want my child to be involved in the deaf culture and community since the main feeling I got was that deaf people are unaccepting to anyone who is not deaf. I got the impression that even trying to learn ASL was a stupid idea and I would never be good at it becuase I am hearing.
Only good for the small bits on Deaf Culture. August 3, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The illustrations are poorly drawn, and often don't even match the descriptions (when it says to use an "s" shape, it shows an "a" shaped hand).
Page 185 shows the sign for "Day" over the word and description for "Second" and "Second" where "Day" should be. On page 202 the illustration for "white" (Which doesn't look like the sign "White" at all even if it was in the right place) is over both the words "white" and "brown".
Some of the alphabet is wrong. The sign for "P" for example, has the tip of the thumb touching the tip of the middle finger (similar to what you would see in the sign for "tea"). It is ironic considering a few of the author's short rants on the mistakes of others (her husband signing "hamburger" instead of "wife", once, or a common mistake between the signs "work" and, well, as the author puts it "making out"), and using words like "clumsiness" to describe their signing. If they were meant to be jokes, they were poorly written. They came off as put downs.
This book be discouraging to a new signer, who needs the confidence to go out there and use what he's learned, not to feel the need to constantly apologize for not being fluent. It's intimidating enough as it is.
Complete Idiot, indeed April 17, 2000
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Well, the book's not all bad . . . For example, the attempt to describe Deaf culture is successful on a very basic level, and the illustrations are attractive, if not particularly useful. That, however, is the main problem- the uselessness of the illustrations. It's as if a textbook on French wrote "gkhukyf" instead of "bonjour"! There's also relatively little on grammar, other than an acknowledgement that there is such a thing as ASL grammar (which is a good first step but by no means the last. Try A Basic Course in American Sign Language by Humphries, Padden, and O'Rourke. And definitely practice with native signers!
Not a particularly good resource September 15, 1999
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I have read other "complete idiots guides" and they can be good resources for beginners. However, this one falls short. It's unclear, easily misinterpreted and inaccurate in places. It gives an slightly less than OK assessment of deaf culture and does not even begin to give the reader an understanding of ASL.
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