Lingvano - Learn Sign Language 9+

Worth the price. My plug and reminder, you are paying for Deaf individuals work compensation which is a big deal. Second, I have been taking classes with people in my local ASL Deaf cohort and decided to try this out to support my receptive and maintenance skills. It teaches features of sign, fingerspelling and builds in a very visual way that Deaf people teach as well as uses ASL grammar which, as a hearing person has been the biggest learning curve since the structure is different and using this app helps to demonstrate that and break it down in an interactive way. This is learning a second language, it doesn’t follow English grammatical rules, so if you become frustrated, yes, you’re learning a different language not just a visual version of What you speak. Looking through the upcoming courses and the concepts that this app will teach me in the future, I am excited to use this app as a support as I continue to interact with my local community and develop my ability to effectively communicate with them. Additionally, the dictionary tool is absolutely amazing and I love looking up a word I haven’t gotten to that I don’t already know. Yes, over the year it may feel pricey to some, but remember, you are compensating paying real people and this will help you to engage with real people in the world. The perspective of that can shift that this really is pretty small relative to the impact you can have on others.

I almost never take the time to write reviews, but this app is fabulous. I am on a 43 day streak, and I am so delighted with my progress. For context, I spent some time in deaf circles as a child, more than 40 years ago, but have had almost no ASL practice since then. In just a few entertaining minutes a day, this app has helped me regain everything I once knew and then some. It starts out deceptively easy, but has a phenomenal depth of both ASL (including grammar!) and Deaf culture. I am so glad that I got a year subscription. I often do a lesson first thing in the morning, but if I forget, it gently reminds me not to break my streak come afternoon. My progress has been such that, last weekend, I felt confident enough to show up at a deaf gathering in my town.

I really like that there is no sound and that the teachers are deaf themselves. This forces me to really work on understanding sign language, rather than lipreading or depending on speech or captions. My only suggestion would be to add a feedback button. There are occasional text errors which could easily be pointed out if there was a forum to do so. overall, highly highly highly recommend this app. I’m having a blast with it!

Overall I love this app. I feel like most of the signers are very clear and easy to follow and understand. A few sign differently and that’s tricky but I feel that it’s helpful to have variety to help prepare you more for the real world.
Their testing isn’t great. I’ve written the wrong word but it was close to the spelling of the correct word, even if they aren’t even remotely related, and I got it correct. I guess the app took it as a misspelling? Other times I’ve added “ing” or put tummy instead of belly and I get it wrong. If there are multiple answers and you miss one, you get it completely wrong. These things aren’t a big deal. But it can be a little annoying when you have to take the test again for little things like this. Also, the tests are so repetitive! I think it’s smart to use the same words over and over to really pound them in, but when the same person is saying the same exact phrase over and over I stop watching and just tap out what they’re saying. I don’t have to try at that point. It takes away from my learning.

Other than the testing being so-so I do feel like I’m learning to recognize signs. I wish there was a way for me to practice them myself through the app like other language learning apps, but I have no idea how they could facilitate that. This is the best ASL app I’ve found and I’ve enjoyed using it overall!