Every sign has
a reason.
Most apps hand you two thousand gestures to memorize, and you quit in two weeks. We teach the form and the history behind it — GIRL traces a bonnet ribbon; HOME is a worn-down “eat, then sleep.” Stories stay. Arbitrary gestures don't.
- signs, each with an evidence tier
- 180
- signs, each with an evidence tier
- lessons across four levels
- 21
- lessons across four levels
- folk etymologies passed off as fact
- 0
- folk etymologies passed off as fact
The thumb traces the line of a bonnet's drawstring along the jaw — a girl's bonnet ribbon. Note the evidence is French: it is documented in 19th-century French Sign Language dictionaries (Puybonnieux 1846, Lambert 1865), from which ASL descends. American sources attest the form but not this origin.
The Deaf-built tools are free and unmaintained. The funded ones are hearing-built and get the handshapes wrong. We built the thing in between: honest sourcing, real grammar, and drills you can't game.
Six things no other ASL app does well
Where a sign comes from, graded by evidence. We show the real derivation, correct the famous myths (OLD is not a beard; TIME predates wristwatches), and say 'unknown' when nobody actually knows.
Read the historiesWrong answers are minimal pairs — same handshape, different location — so guessing fails. The drill remembers what you miss and lets you come back to exactly those signs.
Try a drillEvery sign is drawn as a live trace through the signing space — handshape, location, and the path between. It shows what a photo can't: where the hand starts, where it lands, and how it gets there.
See the diagramsFurrowed brows make a WH-question; a headshake negates. ASL grammar lives in non-manual markers, and we teach them as grammar — not as background noise in a video.
Learn the structureEveryone teaches you to spell A to Z. Nobody trains you to read it back at conversational pace — where learners actually break down. Progressive speed ramps that push receptive fluency.
Open the trainerDeaf-led dictionaries, courses, community organizations, the linguistics behind our claims, and where to find a class. We link out rather than pretend to be the only resource you need.
Browse resourcesAn FSRS scheduler resurfaces the signs you keep missing — recognition only. Producing a sign is a different skill, and we won't pretend a self-graded button can judge your hands.
Two stories everyone teaches. Both are wrong.
The story you're told: The hand strokes an old man's beard.
Nearly every American ASL text explains this sign as stroking an old man's long beard. That story is wrong. Historical dictionaries trace the form to gripping the top of a *cane* and the stooped posture of age. The beard reading is a folk etymology repeated for over a century.
The story you're told: You're pointing at where a wristwatch sits.
The obvious explanation — you're pointing at a wristwatch — is false. The sign is documented in 1885, decades before wristwatches were worn, and descends from the French sign for 'hour' (heure). The wristwatch is a coincidence the modern eye reads backward onto an older sign.
The risk in teaching etymology isn't inventing stories — it's repeating the plausible-sounding ones until they read as fact. The authoritative dictionary's authors put it best: they “resisted the temptation of proposing unsubstantiated claims for fear of perpetuating our own folk etymologies.” So do we.
Ten minutes a day, in this order.
- 1Read a lesson
One idea and a handful of signs. Start at Level 1 and go in order.
Go - 2Drill those signs
Run the receptive drill scoped to the lesson until you're reading, not guessing.
Go - 3Let the deck schedule the rest
Flashcards resurface each sign right before you'd forget it.
Go - 4Watch real signers
Ten minutes of Deaf-made video at full speed. Our resources page lists where.
Go
Learn the sign. Keep the reason.
Start with greetings and family, or open the dictionary and follow the history wherever it goes.