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Rating: 
Summary: Do I have to give it a star???
Review: I looked through this book at a bookstore today, mostly because I was fascinated by how wrong it was and by how little the author knew about the subject. I occasionally tested my Deaf husband, showing him signs from the book, and usually he didn't have a clue of what I was trying to say. I'm a Sign Language interpreter in the DC area and learned to sign in Los Angeles. I don't care how "regional" a sign is, this book is just bad. I agree with all the comments made by people who reviewed the book who knew what Sign Language is. The author clearly doesn't. I searched everywhere in the book for his credentials and found nothing. Here is an everyday ignorant hearing guy who picked up signing in an airport in Canada and is well-known in the "travelling community," whatever that means, and is invited to Deaf events. He now lives in England, but his knowlege of ASL is up-to-date. Yikes! Some of his signs are so old you won't find anyone under the age of 70 using them. Others are so English they would make most Deaf people cringe. Others are just wrong, sloppy, or confusing. I know many people with credentials in the Deaf Community have a preference for Signed English. I disagree, but can respect that they have gone to school and studied and have a different opinion. Whatever. But this guy has no credentials and, in my opinion, no business writing these books. (Check out his phrase book--it's even worse!) I knew right off from his introduction that he was completely clueless. He speaks of people with "hearing difficulties" and calls them "hearing impaired," which shows he's not comfortable calling them Deaf, which makes his identification with this culture highly suspect. Then he explains that ASL is used to convey whole concepts. Well . . . it's used to convey whatever the signer wants to convey, including very specific concepts. He also says that ASL has a structure "of sorts," which implies that it is a lesser language. I spent years studying the linguistics of ASL and it is my language at home. It has just as much of a structure as any language. Then he emphasized the importance of fingerspelling, saying that names, days of the week, and months are "always" fingerspelled. Names, yes, but many people have name signs. Days of the week all have signs--as he shows himself later in the book. Months are all abbreviated so that the fingerspelling becomes a sign. Only March, April, May, June, and July are fully spelled. The rest are all the first three or four letters. One thing missing in the book is the face. Many of the signs focus on just the hands (and you can't always tell where they are because he's wearing black on a black background so his arms are just floating around there). The face provides most of the grammar of ASL. Also, he sticks in a section on markers, or word endings meant to convey tenses and plurality, etc. That isn't a part of Conceptually Accurate Signed English, so why doesn't he call his book "Signing Exact English" and be done with it? I don't know what he is trying to do with the sign for birthday. I've seen clueless people sign "birth" and "Day" but he doesn't even do that. His pictures look like "Baby" and "Day," which makes no sense at all. I know two signs for birthday, an old-fashioned one from California, and the newer sign that has spread across the country from Gallaudet, and he does neither. If you want to learn sign, do not buy this book. Sign Language needs context so you know why you are signing what you are signing. For example, he has a sign for "glass," which is meant to be "cup." Fine. Except the concept is not clear so a novice, the target audience for this book, may end up signing something about "window cups" and looking very stupid in the process. That's just one example. I'm sure I could find many many more. My husband comfirms that any hearing person who tries to communicate with a Deaf person using these signs will be mocked. I don't care if the author thinks his approach is "easy." It's wrong and anyone wanting to know the language doesn't want to start on the wrong foot and then have to unlearn tons of bad habits. Buy the books suggested in the other reviews. They are all good. Also, I recommend anything by Lou Fant, an interpreter with Deaf parents who was a master in the language. He has a very good phrase book that clearly and accuratly shows how Deaf people communicate. Yes, the pictures are drawn, but I think they're more clear than these photos with wrong hand shapes and weird descriptions. I noticed that the author states in the introduction that ASL is the preferred mode of communication between people who are "hearing impaired." Why do you think that is? Shouldn't that sentence send up red flags??? Deaf people change the way they sign when they are with a hearing person with little or no competancy in the language--which probably explains what happened to the author. This is called "code switching." If a Deaf person senses you are getting one-tenth of the message, he will go slow and English and talk baby-talk until you get it. Who wants to sign like a geeky hearing person? Who doesn't want to learn a language in as native a way as possible? This guy is setting hearing people up to be labled negatively in the Deaf Community. The biggest compliment to a hearing signer is being mistaken for Deaf. I know I still sign with a "hearing accent," but I'm always trying to lose it. This book will give you the worst hearing accent you can imagine.
Rating: 
Summary: no index - can't look up words
Review: One fatal flaw with this book is a complete LACK of an index: it's impossible to look up a word that you might wish to sign. Pictures are nice, and that concept would make it a good complement to other books [many of which show signs as line drawings only], but: I don't know enough about signing to confirm or refute others' feedback RE: the book being frought with errors; and even if the pictures and text were perfect, lack of an index renders the book virtually useless for many purposes.
Rating:
Summary: Still an F
Review: This is in addition to the last message I wrote. I just read the other reviews. UGGG...there ARE SO MANY MISTAKES in this book, too many to count! I just checked out what the other reviewers wrote. This book is worthless. If you are new to ASL or any sign language, you're going to see the glossy pictures and think it is correct. They aren't. Read my prevoius message! Thank you and keep on Signing!( the right way!)
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