SignGuard
American Sign Language for beginners. Real signers or nothing. Free, no account, nothing generated.
Look up a sign
Type a word. If it is in the dictionary, you will watch a real signer produce it.
A silent clip of a person signing the word above. It loops; use the controls to pause or step through it.
Videos are streamed from The ASL Dictionary on the Internet Archive, by the Center for Accessible Technology in Sign (contributor Harley Hamilton). Each item there is marked Rights: Public Domain. That is what the uploader declared; it is not a signed licence we hold. StandGuard does not host, alter or re-publish the clips, and is not affiliated with CATS or the Internet Archive.
The fingerspelling alphabet
Fingerspelling is how ASL spells out an English word, one handshape per letter. It is used for names, places, and words that have no sign of their own.
Practise with yourself
Pick a letter from the list below or let the page choose. Make the handshape, check it against the description, ideally in a mirror, and be honest with yourself.
This is a practice aid, not a teacher. Nothing here watches you: there is no camera, and nothing you do is recorded or sent anywhere.
Make this letter
Two letters move: J and Z
Every letter except J and Z is a handshape you hold still. J is the I handshape drawing a J in the air with the little finger. Z is the index finger drawing a Z. A held picture or a word description cannot show a movement properly, so these two are listed but left out of the drill until there is a real clip of them.
Letters that look alike
These are the ones beginners mix up. The difference is usually small: where the thumb sits, or which way the hand points.
- A S T M N E — all closed hands. The thumb tells them apart: beside the fist (A), across the front (S), tucked under one finger (T), under two (N), under three (M), or under bent fingertips (E).
- U V R — two fingers up: together (U), apart (V), crossed (R).
- K V — K has the thumb tip touching the middle finger between the two raised fingers; V does not.
- K P — the same shape; P points down.
- G Q — the same shape; Q points down.
- G H — both point sideways; G with one finger, H with two.
- C O — C is open; O closes so the fingertips meet the thumb.
- I J — J is I plus a movement.
All 26 letters
Described as the person watching you sees it, for a right-handed signer with the palm facing out unless the letter says otherwise. Left-handed signers mirror everything.
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Letter A
Closed fist, thumb straight up against the side of the index finger.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter B
Four fingers straight up and together; thumb folded across the palm.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter C
Fingers and thumb curved into the shape of a C, as if holding a cup. Seen from the side.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter D
Index finger straight up; the middle, ring and little fingers curve down to touch the thumb tip, making a round loop.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter E
Fingertips bent down over the palm, resting just above the thumb, which is folded across underneath them.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter F
Thumb tip and index fingertip touch in a circle; middle, ring and little fingers up and slightly spread.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter G
Hand turned sideways: index finger and thumb point to the side, parallel, with a small gap between them; other fingers closed.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter H
Hand turned sideways: index and middle fingers together, pointing to the side; thumb holds the other two fingers down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter I
Little finger straight up; the other fingers in a fist with the thumb across them.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter Jmoves
Moves. Start in the I handshape and draw a J in the air with the little finger: down, then curving round.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter K
Index finger up and middle finger angled out, in a V; the thumb tip touches the middle finger between them.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter L
Index finger up and thumb out to the side, making an L; other fingers closed.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter M
Index, middle and ring fingers folded down over the thumb; the thumb tip shows between the ring and little fingers.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter N
Index and middle fingers folded down over the thumb; the thumb tip shows between the middle and ring fingers.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter O
All fingertips curved round to meet the thumb tip, making an O.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter P
The K handshape turned so the middle finger points down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter Q
The G handshape turned so the index finger and thumb point down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter R
Index and middle fingers up and crossed, as in “fingers crossed”.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter S
Fist with the thumb wrapped across the front of the fingers.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter T
Fist with the thumb tucked up between the index and middle fingers, under the index finger.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter U
Index and middle fingers straight up and together; thumb holds the other two fingers down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter V
Index and middle fingers up and spread apart.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter W
Index, middle and ring fingers up and spread; thumb holds the little finger down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter X
Index finger raised and bent into a hook; the other fingers in a fist.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter Y
Thumb and little finger stretched out; the three middle fingers folded down.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
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Letter Zmoves
Moves. Point the index finger and draw a Z in the air.
Real-person clip coming — being filmed.
Good habits from the start
- Think of the word, not the letters. As you spell, say the word to yourself the way it sounds, rather than naming each letter.
- Between two spelled words, leave a tiny pause and move the hand very slightly to the side.
- When you meet the Deaf community, spell your name. Do not make up your own name sign — name signs are usually given to you by Deaf people.
Fingerspelling technique and the name-sign custom: Dr. Bill Vicars, Lifeprint — Fingerspelling. Read his lessons there; they are not copied here.
Help us film the alphabet
We want a real signer — ideally a Deaf ASL user — to film the 26 letters and the numbers 0 to 10, one short silent clip each, and we want to pay and credit the person who does. If you sign and would like to be part of it, or know a Deaf creator who might, contact Guard.IAN on X at @AgentGuard458.
Every clip is checked by a Deaf ASL user before it goes on this page. The footage is a camera recording of a real person and is never used to train or drive a generated signer.
ASL and Deaf culture: the basics
Written with input from a hearing signer. For anything here, the best teachers are Deaf people. Most of the sources below are Deaf-led — the National Association of the Deaf, Gallaudet University, and Dr. Bill Vicars, a Deaf ASL instructor — and we recommend going to them directly.
ASL is its own language
American Sign Language is not English on the hands. It is a complete, natural language with its own grammar and word order, separate from English.
It is not universal either. Different countries have different sign languages, and ASL has regional accents of its own.
Source: NIDCD — American Sign Language (US National Institutes of Health).
Fingerspelling vs signs
Most of ASL is signs: one sign carries a whole idea. Fingerspelling is a smaller part of the language, used to spell English words — names, places, and words without a sign.
A beginner who only fingerspells is spelling English slowly, not speaking ASL. Learn signs early.
Source: NIDCD; Lifeprint — Fingerspelling.
The face is grammar
ASL is expressed with the face as well as the hands. Facial expression and head movement — called non-manual markers — change what a sentence means.
Raised eyebrows mark a yes/no question. Lowered, drawn-together eyebrows mark a question with who, what, where, when, why or how. A head shake makes a sentence negative. Mouth shapes can add size or manner. Signing with a blank face is like speaking in a flat monotone, and can say something different from what you meant.
Sources: NIDCD; Dr. Bill Vicars, Lifeprint — Non-manual markers.
Deaf with a capital D
Many people write Deaf, with a capital D, for the cultural community that shares ASL, history and values, and deaf, lower case, for not hearing. Not every deaf person is part of Deaf culture, and people choose how they identify.
ASL is the backbone of American Deaf culture. Avoid “hearing impaired” and “deaf-mute”: the National Association of the Deaf explains why most of the community rejects both.
Sources: NAD — American Sign Language; NAD — Community and Culture FAQ; the capital-D convention is usually credited to linguist James Woodward (1972), see Deaf culture.
Everyday etiquette
Getting attention: wave if the person can see you; a light tap on the shoulder if they can’t; flicking the lights a few times for a room.
Eye contact: keep it. Everything in a signed conversation comes through the eyes, so looking away is like walking off mid-sentence.
Turns: the signer has the floor until they show they have finished, with a pause or a look.
Source: Gallaudet University, Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center — American Deaf Culture.
How to learn well
Take a class, ideally taught by a Deaf teacher. Gallaudet University, the university for Deaf and hard of hearing students, runs ASL Connect online.
Find your local Deaf community — Deaf clubs, events, ASL socials — and go, mostly to watch and be patient. A state association of the Deaf (listed by the NAD) is a good place to ask.
Free lessons from a Deaf instructor: Dr. Bill Vicars’ Lifeprint (ASL University).
Coming next
English → ASL gloss
Paste a short English sentence and get it back as ASL gloss: the signs written in English capitals, in ASL word order, with notes on facial grammar — for example a question that needs raised eyebrows.
Gloss is a study aid, not signing. It is text only: no video, no generated signer.
Not live yet. This site is static and cannot run a language model, so it will come through Guard.IAN, and the gloss rules he follows are written and checked by a person who signs before anything ships.
The alphabet, on video
A real signer filming A–Z and 0–10, paid and credited, checked by a Deaf ASL user. Help us film it.
Camera practice
Checking your handshape with your webcam, on your own device, would only be added with an existing open-source recogniser whose code, model and training data are all licensed for this use. We have not found one that meets that bar. We will not invent our own scoring and pretend it is a teacher.
How this is made
Real people, or nothing
Guard.IAN does not invent a sign and does not render one. He plays recorded footage of a human signer, or he shows nothing.
No 3D models, no avatars, no characters driven by motion capture, no AI-generated people. An AI guessing at a sign teaches somebody something wrong, and a wrong sign is worse than no sign.
Checked before shown
On 5 October 2026 this page briefly showed an alphabet made from a 3D model and called it a person. It was taken down within the hour and logged on the corrections page.
On 6 October we checked the Internet Archive’s letter entries frame by frame before using them. They are computer-drawn hands, so they are not shown. The word clips in the dictionary are a real signer.
Nothing is watching you
No camera, no account, no record of what you look up or practise.
The dictionary asks the Internet Archive for one clip at a time. Nothing else leaves your browser.
Licences respected
Most ASL video collections are for research only, because Deaf signers agreed to research and not to somebody’s product. Those are not used here, and licence terms are not stretched.
The dictionary clips are marked public domain by the organisation that recorded them.