 Yo! Welcome to my channel. We're going to be doing a review of the ASL or the American Sign Language that's used in the second season of The Dragon Prince. The character that uses ASL is a general by the name of General Amaya. She's a really great character. I want to highlight some of the signs that she uses, the body language that she does it with, and sort of like hopefully learn something cool about my experiences with the deaf communities that I'm part of thanks to... Ah man, this intro is staking too long. Let's just get straight to it dude. Cartoons man and sign language. Like perfect combination. We don't need a preamble. Let's go straight into it. Hey, check this out. So the first season of The Dragon Prince was kind of rough in terms of translating the ASL that was in the show because the frame weight was so low. The frame rate was like 12 frames per second. There was so much stuff being missed in the cracks and the details and like the life of the characters being blocked up into like PowerPoint presentations. But now they've clearly addressed that issue. Frame weight is a lot higher and I think as a result it's been a lot easier to translate what's going on in the show. So good job guys for making those improvements. Let's work on lighting maybe and better contrast between like the hands and like brown hands that are covered with brown gloves behind a brown background. It makes it kind of hard to see. Like in this scene for example, General Maya is signing to a colleague of hers and she says, I see elves breached there. And it's kind of hard to see that. I'm not even sure if that's what she said. Let's write that down though. Let's see. And if I'm wrong, hey, I'm going to correct it. But let me know in the comments what you guys think. So I see elf, I think I see elf breached. And let's go to the next sign. We'll do a breakdown after we get this written down. Oh look, the points. There. That works. Oh she's angry. No, there's something wrong search group. Barely half of that. I saw wrong search group. Okay, so we're going to have to see this again. A little slower. A little slower. And hey, you know when you're learning ASL, receiving is the hardest part. Working with someone that can sign with you. So you can see the signs from a different perspective and different angle. Because you have to know the signs from your side, from your perspective, as well as from the perspective of the people that are signing to you. So reception is like one of the unspoken hardest parts of ASL. Particularly when it's done at angles that you're not familiar catching signs at. Like from the side, like in this angle, or like over the shoulder and stuff like that. So let's see. Let's back this up. But again, they're doing such a great job. This is actual ASL, it's great. So she says, I saw, I saw, or I see, an elf. So she's doing this, this, so she's going to her ears and she's making it pointing. The clearer way of signing elf is like this, like elves, elves, but she's really saying pointy ear. And so instead of elf, she's saying pointy ear, but I'm interpreting it as elf here because she's talking about elves. Hey, this show's got elves in it, yo. I see elf, let's see what she's saying next. Breach, she's forming the breach, which is that, you know, Niagara Falls of Lava. There. There. This. It. Here. There. Right? That. She's indexing. So it's a combination of indexing and signing. Oh, there's some more. There's something, or there's something. You've got to catch those signs. There. Something. Wrong. So there's something wrong. How should I make the rest of the sentence? Oh, she doesn't. It's a brand new sentence. Cool. There's something wrong. This sign means set up. So think of it as like, hey, you're building a tent. You set up a tent. You're building something. You set up something. So it's related to like other signs that are about making something or forming something. So I established, I set up something like I made, I made, I hardcore made something. So like make, make this or set up, create, you know, generate, make, set up a search, set up a search group. I think she's what she's saying. So set up, set up, let's delete this and we'll get into the specifics. Set up, set up, search, search group. This is the sign for group. Just you're forming a mass around the group itself. So let's like search group. If you want to be very specific and I prefer this way, you make a G and you make another G. Letter and you make the group sign with the G's. So this is a group. If you make a P and you make the group sign, it becomes party. T, team, F, family, your classifying groups based on the letter that they start with. So like family, team, party, group or you can do group, general sense. So set up a search group and I think she does it this way. Again, again, no, there's something wrong. Set up a search, I'm sorry, set up a search group. And then she said before that, I see elf breach there, which is probably like, hey, I see some elves over there by the breach. And the other guy was like, no, no, no, no, there was nothing over there. And she was like, no, no, no, no, no. Or just like one thing, no, there's something wrong. Yeah, there's something wrong. Set up a search group. All right, let's move forward. Search group. Yeah, very understated the way how she did group. But you can see that she's signing it and then dropping her hands. All right. So they go over to the breach. Um, this is the search group. Here's the guy that they met over off the other side. He's like, hey, there's no problems here. Nothing to worry about. Don't mind me sweating. And meanwhile he's like, hey, behind me, behind me, there's a problem. So when I saw this, I thought this was originally danger, dangerous like this. But I think it could be actually a combination between danger and like behind me behind me. I think either works perfectly fine. So danger. Oh, no. Oh, no. There we go. I think it's safe to conclude that the outpost on this side remains secret. All right. So danger. There looks like this signal. The outpost. Something is behind me. You don't need it. You don't need an explanation for that. Okay. So yes, let's look at danger again. Yeah, signal was late. He's like behind me, behind me, behind me, behind me. I shouldn't have laughed. He's in dangerous situations. So is it dangerous behind me? I think it could be both. It works either way. The scene works either way. It's just one of those perfect moments. Behind me. Okay. Let's move on. What's next? Okay. She's fighting the elf ladies that are there. She's like, come at me, bro. But the thing is that is not an ASL sign. This is not an ASL sign. Actually, this is an ASL sign, but it doesn't mean come over here. This is a sign for come over here. Like, come fight me, bro. No, it's like, come over here, man. Come fight me. Come over here. You probably say with a more angry expression. Right. But we're like, get over here. Maybe. I don't know. But like, you know, come over here. Come here. But this in ASL actually means 15. The reason why it means 15. And this leads to a lot of confusion for me particularly. But a lot of numbers get abbreviated in ASL with the way how you express numbers. So like, this is 10. And this is 5. And instead of doing 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 15, 15, 15, 15. Same that. It evolved over time. Words, phrases, numbers, a lot of stuff in ASL gets abbreviated so that it can be signed more efficiently. And that's called economy of movement. So this actually means 15. Because you get the 10 and you get the 5 in like one quick sign. Right. And when I see this in like the fight scene, it's more of like a non-ASL use of the term of like, hey man, come fight me. But I just want to let you know that that actually is a sign in ASL. It just means something completely different. Interesting facts brought to you by me. 15. Or maybe she's like, dude, I can fight 15 of you. I'm not even getting started yet. Is that the best you got? True. There better be 14 more of you. All right. Here's a confusing one. Actually, it's not that confusing. It's just an adult joke. It's just signed very subtly. So let's explain the joke in the most clinical sense so that way we can save some time. Hero, king hero. Excuse me. Excuse me. My man, king hero makes a sign that looks like, you know, one other time do you see someone do this, right? Oh, no. I don't mean it like that. I meant more like proctor exam. Oh my gosh. Excuse me. Excuse me. Anyway, we're going through the same steps Amaya went through. So like, imagine he's sticking his fingers up someone's bum. That's what's going on here. It looks like that. And look at the expression on General Amaya's face when she sees that. She's like, oh my gosh. Because she's like tuned into like the signing. So she's just like, oh my gosh. That sign look like, oh, but now I get it. So that's basically what she says in the scene. So right now she's just like, oh my gosh. Hey. Oh, again, another perfect opportunity. Remember what I was saying about economy of movement before. General Amaya is going HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA. A bit of a tangent, but this also means 13 because you have the 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 3, 3, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13. So, like I said, um, economy movement sometimes leads to some confusing moments, but in the context of the situation, she's clearly making what she thinks light of the situation, so she's saying ha ha ha ha ha. Uh, let her continue. Hey man, that sign. That sign. That sign. Plus, that face is great. Uh, that sign. Uh, so this sign means like, okay, well, nope. That sign plus that face means like, okay, well, there you go. Or, generally, this is like, oh, I get it. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like, oh, I see now. Yeah? Like, oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see. Or like, well, okay. Well, okay. I don't know. It's hard to sell that without sarcasm. But you need the, okay, so basically she's like, King Harold looks like he's sticking his fingers up a bum. Ha ha ha ha. That sign. At first I was like, what am I looking at? But now I get it, right? That's basically what she's saying. So again, uh, King Harold looked like he was doing something weird. I saw that sign and I was like, oh my gosh. But now I'm like, oh my gosh, I finally get it. But whoa. That's the joke. It's not easy to translate into English. But I get it. It's funny. Everyone can laugh at that. Nothing. Little adult humor in my cartoons. It's great. Again, nice flow. Yo. Ha ha ha ha ha. That sign was like, hmm, I don't know. The face really sells the joke. If that makes any sense. Like, if she was just like that sign, oh I see. Uh, it doesn't belie the impression that she had a completely different impression of what that sign originally meant. So with that face combined, it adds the dynamic of like, well at first I was like, well, now I get it. Ha ha ha. Okay, let's move on. Uh, there she's just miming throwing spears. I don't know if that, so you can sign throw like this. But I think she just sent it out. Oh. Nice. So when I do, so I've taught my cat some tricks and I use ASL sometimes to like teach him to sit, you know, like roll over and all that stuff. Uh, he, when he does tricks that are good, I do this. It's like, hey, good job. Wonderful. That's what the sign means. Like, great. Good job. Wonderful. Um, if you're saying good job, it could be a little different. So like, good J-O-O-B. But again, you have economy of movement. So sometimes you'll see good job, like good job. So J, you just close the fist and you pop out the B because as you make the J, you already make an O kind of. If you just break your pinky pinky down and then you flick your fingers up and you make that B. So good job. Right. Um, and then you can say like, hey, wonderful. Good job. Oh, good job. Hey, good job. Good job, you. So she's doing the same thing too. She's like, hey, good job. We did it. I love that. That's great. Also that bow staff must be the lightest thing in the world that she can do. Physics. Physics Tyrone. Look at that. Good job. Look how much that bow staff is wavering. That's hard. That's hard to do. That's good for strength. Um, sister. She says sister. Hard to see sister with black gloves on black fabric. I'm not going to dwell. It's still accurate. How my. Oh, I didn't get that. How. I think she said face. So I think she's like, how's my face? Give me a second. How face. She did say how face. Like, I guess it's a question. Sometimes I get these words that I'm like, okay, I got the words, but how do I even make that into a sentence? Okay. And I don't want to restart the video. So let's how, how about this? How, let me make sure that was the end of it. Yep, that was the end of it. So she says how, and there's different ways you can say how. I like this way. How, but you can also use one hand. How face like, look. What's my, how's my face look? How's my face look like? Like these, these words don't make, it's not a good translation to English, but if you're like in English, you'd be like, what's my face look like? Right? What's my face look like? Or like, how's my face? It's a combination between those two in English. And if I was signing this myself, I would probably swap look and like so that you get look like. So how face look like, or look like, right? That way it's just easier for me in my head to say it so that I get interpreted as well. If I was signing to someone who spoke English, would we talk? I would sign it like how face look like. And I don't even know if you're always signing to someone that's deaf if I'd sign it. How face like look. That's just an awkward way of signing it. Honest with you. It's an awkward sentence. It's just a weird awkward sentence. But generally it means, as far as like, hey, you actually used real signs, you put them together, I'm fine with it. What's my face look like, man? I just, I just survived a huge battle. I got a giant head trauma, facial scar. My words might be jumbled up a little bit. Just tell me how they look. I get that, I get that. So we'll give, we'll give it a pass. Not great. Straight to the point. So not, same thing as I showed before. This is wonderful. There's a lot of different ways of showing wonderful. I like, hey, good job. Good job. Wonderful. Great. You can do this as well. It's like, great, great. So she's saying, not great. You can also do that with just your face. Not great. You don't even have to say not. So like, I think she said, and I'm going to go back and verify, but like, not great. Actually, I think there was some other signs in there too. Let me, let me just double check. So my eyes all jumbled up. She's like, face how look like me, bro? Face. Face look like, ah, there is one little thing. Just like, eh. Eh, not great. Excuse me. It's not great. Eh, not great. She said, she signs that out. It's wonderful. Not great. You should see other. See other. This means other. Other or else, else. See other. I don't know what that means. Let's go back. Let's go back and double check. How face like, look. Eh, not great. Hey, but you should see other. I'm going to have to see that one more time. Eh, not great. So what's hard is, I can't tell if I'm doing something because it's so dark. So like her hands are so dark and this is the same color as that. It's just weird. It's hard to see. But I think she says boy. I'm going to see, she says boy. She meant like, you should see the other boys maybe? I don't know. You should see the other boy. Eh, not great. Let's see. I'm trying to translate this. You should see other boy. Eh, eh, not great. But you should see the other boy. You should see the other boy. Other boy. Boys? Maybe? That's what she's saying. So I might as like, how's my face? And she's like, that's not great. But you should, you should go see the other boys. And I think the scene just got cut off to a little bit too short plus the contrast wasn't really great. But again, if I were going to sign this, I'd say like, oh my gosh. Uh, my face looks like, what? There's a show and go like, like that. And then she, but it's like, hey, hey, hey, hey. But relax. You know, relax. Uh, you should, you should see the other boys. Cause they all look like crap too. Alright, so it's all good. I think she's trying to make her feel better. See other boy. See other boy. Yeah, I think it's like, you should see everybody else. Like, don't worry about you. Everyone else looks like a piece of work too. It's all good. Okay, let's move on to the last couple of scenes we're almost done with this video. Oh, look how I like that bo-staff some of the guy. Yeah, if they just made the hands a lighter color than the, on the outfit, like a white or like gold, like these ribbons here, it'd be way easier to pick out what they're saying as they're saying it like the first time through. Alright, let's see what do we got? Last couple of scenes. You don't need Whisper Eye Def, dude. It'll be okay. Once I rest a bit, I can make it back by myself. We won't leave you here alone. I'll stay with the money. We'll make it whole together. Everyone else should take the heart back. They agree. Times of vessels. No. That's pretty good translation, I think. That's pretty good. Let's make sure we got it right. Okay, so you don't need to. Let's talk about that real quick. This sign, while it means need, could also mean should, you must, you ought to. And it's really just in the face and the context of how you use it. So like, you don't need to or you don't, oh, and I'll, we'll do one thing at a time. But like, the context of the situation determines whether or not it's like a need or should. This is can, which is a completely different word that, or using a completely different context, but need, should, must, ought, it's like this. I need to do this. You need to do this. So it's directional. She needs to do this. He needs to do that. I need to do this, but you need to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you use your face at the same time too, you can make it from a need to don't need. So you can even be like, you don't need to do that. It's like, do I need this? It's like, you don't need it. Like, right? But I think she says don't need. So you don't need, or she kind of does it kind of like in a sly way. So it's like, you don't need it. You don't need it. You don't need to, and that's how she's phrasing it. So don't not, you don't need to, and the way, and so this is where, this is why I'm bringing this up. It's a little redundant, right? Because she's already directing need to the person, but she starts off the sentence with you. So you don't need, you don't need, it's a silly thing. So as a summary, you could actually say you don't need, all in just one gesture, or one sign. It's like, you don't need to. Like, right? That means you don't need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't have to sign it like you don't need to, but you could if you wanted to. You could do either one. It's fine. But I know Amaya uses a lot of abbreviated phrases, and she speaks in a sort of like stoic, laconic sort of way. So it's interesting that she's talking like this now. I'm thinking either, one, they got a different person to do the signing for this season, and that's why a lot of the signs, why there's probably not as many signs in this season compared to the first, or the signs come out a little differently. Like in some cases with like, what does my face look like? It looks like they're a little bit off. Like this thing going on here, like that's not typically ASL sign. But the other thing is, maybe it's just a circumstance where Amaya's led her guard down now that they've won the battle. So she's a little bit more verbose with the way how she speaks. So it could just be a character dynamic as well too. It's kind of interesting. But yeah, you don't need to whisper. Whispers like this. So like yelling yell. Right? Talk. Hey, I'm talking. I'm talking. I'm a talking person. Talk. Talk. Whisper. So you don't need to whisper, right? I'm veering deaf. I'm deaf. Dude. She's like, I'm deaf. Come on. It'll be okay. Okay. Oh, she's still signing. Give me a second. I'm deaf. By the way, General Amaya's deaf. All the people, all the snowflakes on Tumblr are like, she's not deaf. She just likes talking with her hands. She's a powerful lady. Dude, you can be deaf and be a powerful person at the same time too. That's why I like the show. That's the whole point of the show. Let's have a fun time, guys. Let's appreciate the fact that we actually have a great representation of a deaf character on TV or Netflix, whatever you want to call it. All right. It'll be okay. She signs okay. Once I rest a bit, I can make it back by myself. Oh, my gosh. There are a lot of signs there. So I will rest, B-A-C-K, and that's all I caught. So let's get that. So I think we saw the last part of okay. Okay. Rest, B-A-C-K. Let's back up. It'll be okay. Once I rest a bit, I can make it back by myself. Oh, man. We got to slow that down just a little bit. One more time. Yes. I think she says good back myself or something like that. It'll be okay. Okay. Once I rest. Oh. Okay. Rest, bit. Rest a little. Rest a little. Just a bit. Good. Good. I can make it back by myself. Myself. Myself. Okay. Rest a little. Good. Back myself. I know she's like, I'm okay. I'll rest a little. No. Sorry, you guys can't see that. She says myself. I'm okay. I'll rest a little. Head back when I'm good. Good. Back. It's so hard to translate these things now. Then back. Let's see. So she's like, let's break down the signs. Okay. Rest a little. Then when I'm good, I'll go B-A-C-K. Myself. So like, let me make sure I just got that right. Jeff. He's all like, I didn't know she was deaf. Did everyone hear that? It'll be okay. Okay. Rest a little. I can make it back by myself. I'll go back by myself. We won't leave you there. I think it's missing some words there, but that's fine. They got a lot of signs in there. Oh my gosh. If I critique it, I feel like I have to explain what I would do differently. But to be honest with you, I think they did a really good job here. So I would still say, it's okay. I'm going to rest. Or I can say rest. This means sleep or nap. I'm going to rest a little. And I'll be good. I will be good. Then I'll go B-A-C-K. This weird phrase, like how would I go back? I would return. I'd go back myself. Or I'll follow you guys after I rest or something like that. There's a lot of different ways you could say that. Okay, rest a little good. Back myself. B-A-C-K myself. See, it's the B-A-C-K that's kind of throwing me off. Because she could just say return or go back home. You know what? I'm going to call it. It's all right. It's good. It works. It works. But it's just an awkward way of saying it. I do wonder if they got a different sign language person for this season compared to what they had in the first one. Or if they had like a pair of sign language people in the first season, did they rely on one more than the other? Because the phrasing is a little jumbled, right? And a little bit more... I'll explain it like this. There are a lot of different kind of deaf communities. And they're characterized by the people that are inside of them. Sometimes you have people that have family members that aren't deaf. And so the way how they sign is more reliant on how we speak as English speakers. So they may sign in a format that's very consistent with English grammar. Or they may sign words that are really, really short. Because they may not know the alternatives that are standard in ASL. Like back versus return. Or like go home or stuff like that. And like okay, B-A-C-K. That is very different from how General Amaya was signing in the first season. And General Amaya's signing in first season is just like three words. You know what I'm saying. Very stylish signs too. And on the borderline from stylish to very straightforward. And in this season it's been a little bit more like different. It's more as if it's affected by working around people that use like exact English spelling. Or that the words got mixed up a little bit sometimes too. But you know what, I had a good time. I think more or less that's the end. And just putting it all in context is a little weird. I think the signing is a little different from this season compared to the last season. I still think it's great quality. But it feels as if it's coming from a different person. And I'm saying that only from the sense of how iconic she was in the first season. Like straightforward attitude. Body language I'm ready to go. But here it's different. And it could just be the fact that you know it's a younger General Amaya. Maybe she's a little bit more Lucy Goosey with the way how she's signing. And if that's the case, man, that's really well done. Because it does feel like she's a different person in this season. So that's kind of cool. It's cool that just from the way how someone stylistically chooses how to sign. That they would come up with, you know, with almost a different personality. And she does not seem as stern and as serious in this flashback as she does, you know, in the future. In the present tense of whether the show is taking place. So like flashback Amaya definitely does joke around more. Definitely does speak with a little that's a little bit like, Wow, why would you put them in this? Why would you use these words in this order? But it's still sort of like the keyword pigeon sort of signing that I've grown accustomed with her using. So I think it works. It works is fine. And yeah, we had some really good times, at least in this video, or at least in the season with the jokes that she was using, the signs that she was interpreting. But there were some weird things going on. Like this thing really threw me off. I'm just like, what? Like, I get it. You're cool. But like what? And then anyway, I'm happy. I want to see more of the character. That's basically what I'm saying. Let's see more dynamics of how she signs and get a really cool impression of who she is as a person. And as a character as well. And spend more time anyway. That's it guys. I had a fun time. I hope you guys had a fun time too. I hope the lighting was a little nice. You can see more stuff and more summaries of the ASL that's used in the show. But what I would really recommend is that you check out the show itself on Netflix. I think the third season is dropping later this year, maybe around September. And I will be there and I'll be translating because I love the show. All right. See you guys later. Bye.