I have a friend, Regina, who is one of my favorite people in the world. She is so patient with me, and is my go-to source of new vocabulary. Every conversation with her is interrupted about every 30 seconds by me asking what a sign means, but she seems to not mind, and be glad to help. Which is why I like her! And she's Filipino, so we have the same tastes :)
On Sunday there were a couple of funny translation moments. First, I interrupted her to ask her what a sign meant that I didn't know. She usually just spells it for me, but this time she stopped, paused, got a really blank look on her face, then turned to another deaf person in the room and asked her what that sign meant in English. The two of them looked blankly at each other and finally decided, "It doesn't really have an English translation." First time I've come across that in ASL. I told her I understood, there's this word "makulit" in Tagalog that I can't really describe in English, either. She looked interested. "Makulit?" she said out loud. Which I wasn't expecting! It turns out her mom had used that word a lot when she was growing up!
The conversation resumes, and another sign comes up that stymies me. Unfortunately, it seems like something I should know, but can't quite place, and I pause a minute over whether I'll look really stupid if I stop her and ask what it means.
It's a good thing I paused, it was Ellis's name sign.
Ahhh...just another day in the life of a language learner!
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