# Good resources for sign language related to riding/horses?



## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Kudos to you for recognizing your signing skills and vocabulary could use some bumping up and for being willing to develop more skills.

My favorite book for learners is "Joy of Signing." The signs are ASL based and pretty standard across the country. You may also contact Galludet for resources. There are DVDs that target learning signs about different, specific subjects. They are available for loan for the cost of shipping, and used by interpreters and deaf persons alike to expand vocabulary. 

The best way, of course, is to hang with Deaf people. Is there a Deaf club in your area? Do any junior colleges, churches, community centers offer classes (where they often waive a cost if they know you have a need and it's not just some "cool" phase)?

There is a guy on you tube who ranches and explains a lot of ranch and horse related stuff. He signs slower than what adults would normally sign to each other in conversation. 

Good luck.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Thanks, boots. Good suggestions- I wasn't able to find the ranch guy on YouTube, but I did find this 



 video. I wish the video was closer as I was having trouble picking up all the movements. One question I had- it seemed like the blond woman spelled out many of the horse vocabulary words (i.e., stirrup, mane) rather than using one sign for the term- does this mean there's not a specific sign for these terms, and the way to communicate them is to spell it? I don't have a lot of experience learning new vocabulary, so I'm not sure if this is a typical teaching too.

So much to learn-but this is going to be really fun!


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

egrogan said:


> - it seemed like the blond woman spelled out many of the horse vocabulary words (i.e., stirrup, mane) rather than using one sign for the term- does this mean there's not a specific sign for these terms, and the way to communicate them is to spell it? I don't have a lot of experience learning new vocabulary, so I'm not sure if this is a typical teaching too.
> 
> So much to learn-but this is going to be really fun!


I'm afraid not. Also, it is common to fingerspell new vocabulary to others for clarity and for the memorization of the spelling. 

But, then, the people involved in the conversations will develop either their own signs or come to an agreement on what abbreviation of finger spelling to use. Being hearing I always let the deaf person decide on that.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

I looked and looked for that series of videos and couldn't find them. It was about a year ago, so I have no idea where they went.


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