I'm learning ASL and I just got to the numbers part- I was shocked to see that numbers 1-5 are wrong! Numbers 1-5 are always signed with the palm facing in, not out. If they got something so simple wrong, it makes me a little worried about how much they really know the language. Was this course designed by hearing or Deaf people?
Response from Rocket Languages
Hi Eileen - Thanks for your review! I just thought that I would let one of our Sign Language experts respond... "While it is true that simply counting the cardinal numbers 1-5 in ASL the numbers are done with the palm facing in, for most practical uses of the numbers in daily communication the palm faces out - for that reason they are shown this way in the lesson. For example, if you were to tell the time you would not sign 2:05 as "time 2:05" with your palm facing in - it would face out. Another example would be a phone number - no matter which number 1-9 ,the palm always faces out. Really, there are many different deep language rules connected with number usage - for example how you count days, weeks and months - which will be introduced and explained in later lessons. Some of team who contributed to this course grew up using ASL to communicate, others attended ITP programs and are RID certified, while others have been educators in the Deaf community for nearly 20 years. Thanks to this feedback we can make some adjustments to the lesson to explain clearly why we are showing the numbers this way." So Eileen, thanks for your feedback. We will change it to make it clearer!