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Step 1
Learn American Sign Language by taking community classes, reading books, renting videos or looking up websites dedicated to ASL. If you are going to be interpreting for someone on a specific topic, then learn the associated words for that topic.
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Step 2
Wear appropriate clothing while interpreting. For example, if you have light colored skin, dark colors will enable your hands to be seen clearly. Also, stand in a well-lit area throughout the translation.
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Step 3
Show the emotions of your speaker through facial expressions. Sad messages should be interpreted with a frown while smiling communicates joy to your audience.
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Step 4
Communicate questions appropriately. For instance, "WH" questions are expressed with furrowed eyebrows while yes/no questions are interpreted with a raised brow line.
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Step 5
Ask the speaker to talk slower than normal throughout your interpretation. In addition, remember to pause between sentences so your audience can follow the flow of your speaker's message.
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Step 6
Translate English into American Sign Language using appropriate (Topic/Comment) sentence structure. For example, "I see the cat" changes to "cat, I see."
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Step 7
Use finger spelling for signs you don't know. In addition, finger spelling comes in handy when communicating proper nouns to your audience.
