Similarly, where should you look when talking to someone?
If you are talking to someone one-on-one (or looking at people within a group), choose a spot directly between or slightly above the listener's eyes. If this doesn't feel comfortable, try letting your eyes go slightly out of focus, which has the added benefit of softening and relaxing your gaze.
Subsequently, question is, how can you tell if someone is using ASL or signed English? In ASL, the subject, the topic of the sentence, often comes first. Modifiers (such as adjectives) often come after the subject. Signed-English systems follow the syntax of spoken English, and thus place verbs and modifiers before the sub- ject.
Just so, what should you focus on when someone is signing?
If you focus on a signer's hands, you miss a lot of crucial information; instead, focus on the signer's face and shoulders. Use your peripheral vision to watch the hands. By doing this, you see the whole signer, and you're apt to better understand the conversation.
Is it rude to speak while signing?
Yet, this is exactly what happens to signed languages when people try to speak to a Deaf person in an oral language while trying to sign in a signed language (“SimCom”). So, yes, in a way, it's rude — not to the Deaf person individually, but to Deaf people as a linguistic and cultural community.
