Talking with Your Hands, Listening with Your Eyes: A Complete Photographic Guide to American Sign Language

The book itself is awesome! However, this was listed as being a brand new book. Clearly it was not. The corners of the cover and pages were dinged up and bent outward. The back cover had sticky residue portions in multiple places, and the bottom corner was bent backwards like the cover caught on another book when placed on a bookshelf. It also has a eCampus(dot)com textbook resale sticker on it. The front cover had a coffee? drip stain and did not have that new book stiffness to the binding crease, and the book has certain areas it quickly lays open to (in the first 30pgs or so), like those were places a previous owner had it opened to for awhile while studying. The top of the book (as it would stand on a bookshelf) has dust or finger smudges. Like I mentioned, the book itself and the way ASL is taught in this book is awesome! I gave that aspect 5 stars. I just wish there had been more integrity from the seller in the description by listing it as "gently used" or "like new but previously used" etc. instead of passing it off as completely NEW. I could have paid far less for a copy that was truthfully listed as used if I had wanted a used copy to begin with.

As with every sign language book, the signs my dead step father uses are different from some of the signs in this book (likely regional and personal differences). I had the students in my class buy this book for us to use. The pictures are great and help to clarify what the sign actually looks like, which sets this book apart from most others. I do not like how the signs within each chapter are organized, though. They are organized alphabetically but my brain doesn't work that way when it comes to signs. I like for opposites to be together, for similar category words to be together (drinks together, fruits together, meats together, desserts together, mealtime signs, etc.) and similar signs (all female signs, for instance) to be together. I have discovered a way around this (I make a list of the words in each chapter in the easiest order to reach and learn them, then they can use the book as reference).

Looks like I get to be the first negative review for this book. I'm guessing the author has lots of colleagues/friends/family/students.I got this book so I could learn ASL to talk with a deaf friend.The good: It contains a fairly comprehensive set of signs. There were only a couple signs I tried to find and couldn't.The bad: For starters, while there are photos for the facial expressions, the other head and face movement components of the signs are not indicated. Nor is there any text to describe the shown facial expressions, so one has to guess as to whether or not any facial expression is actually necessary and what its intention is. These are vital parts of ASL signs that are mostly left out of this book.When I started going through this I found that some of the signs conflict with 3 other ASL books I had been using. When I showed this book to my deaf friend she said the book was wrong. We both went through Chapter 2 together, counted, and 25% of the signs were signs that she said were wrong, and my other 3 ASL books, for the most part, agreed with my friend. I had at first attributed this discrepancy to regional variation, but the problem is too pronounced. Either regional variations in ASL are mutually unintelligible (in which case they wouldn't be regional variations of the same language) or this book is using the wrong signs a quarter of the time.It should also be noted that many of the signs in the book that we classified as correct are actually only just "close to correct". Many of them are simplified versions of the real ASL signs. Important hand (and head) movements are quite often omitted in both the photographs and the text.Even more disappointing is that this book contains absolutely nothing about ASL grammar. It's just a dumping of signs, a categorized dictionary. This book provides no instruction for learning the actual language. A language is much more than just the vocabulary. If all you want is a dictionary, there are numerous free ASL dictionaries online which will show you the signs, many showing signs with videos so you get all the information needed to PROPERLY make those signs, and those dictionaries are at least as accurate, most are more accurate, than this book.I recommend you save your money for something else.

I loved the way that the author presented the signs with an explanation as to why or how to make them relevant and memorable. As a novice that is trying to teach others basic signs, this has proven invaluable. Excellent reference to the core signs as well (e.g. alphabet, etc.) I actually got both the printed book as well as the Kindle version for portability... the book is understandably large!The Kindle version is exactly the same, of course. I wish that its index allowed me to jump immediately to the word with a link, but instead I have to do a search. The search brings up all instances of the word which can be difficult to sort through when looking for the core sign. Further, the picture of the person doing the sign is often on the page following the word itself, so you have to remember the order that it presents the info. Otherwise, it is easy to be looking at the wrong sign!All in all, an excellent reference book for any sign that I would logically need... and many more!

Talking with your hands and listening with your eyes is one of the best, if not the best book to begin learning how to sign. This book features picures with actual human beings, instead of drawings, that show the exact hand movements and hand placements that are so vital to communicating in sign. This book also features a reference guide in the back so that you can quickly look up a sign that you have in question. This book also has pictures of actual human hands signing the alphabet which is the first thing anyone who is interested in signing should learn.Again, I have been searching around for books on signing and out of all of them, this is the best. I borrowed several books from the library and after looking at all of them, this one stood out by far! I liked it so much I bought two of them. One for my girlfiend and I had to buy one for me too!You won't be dissapointed in this book.

Love love this book very easy to read

Easy to follow pictures make this easy to learn.