Dr. Bill's Fingerspelling App

How to play

1. Watch the word being fingerspelled. It repeats automatically until you answer.
2. Tap (or click) the word that matches. Right answer: +1 point. Wrong answer: -1 (your score never goes below zero).
3. Stuck? Tap Reveal to see the answer and move on -- no points gained or lost.
4. Reach 100 points to win. Fewer tries is a better game.

Controls

• Slower / Faster: ten speeds, from 2.0 seconds per letter down to 0.2 seconds per letter.
• Shorter / Longer: word length, from "up to 3 letters" to "any length."
• Your speed and length settings are remembered on this device.

Tips and extras

• On a desktop computer you can press 1, 2, 3, or 4 to choose an answer. The Tab key moves between buttons too.
• Double letters (like the "ll" in "ball") appear as a small sideways shift of the hand -- just as in real fingerspelling.
• Try reading the overall shape and movement of the whole word rather than catching each letter one at a time. That is how skilled signers do it.
• On a phone, the small square button at the bottom-left enters or exits full screen for a larger view.

About Dr. Bill

William G. Vicars, Ed.D., (widely known as "Dr. Bill" of ASL University) is a professor emeritus at Sacramento State University where he served as a full-time tenured professor and coordinator of the American Sign Language and Deaf Studies degree program -- including teaching ASL linguistics and other Deaf Studies courses. He is Deaf. He holds an earned doctorate in Deaf Studies / Deaf Education from Lamar University in Texas (accredited), and has over 30 years of experience teaching and providing workshops in a wide variety of settings including internationally (Singapore, Guyana, etc.), in-person, and online. He is the director of Lifeprint.com -- one of the world's most popular web destinations for learning sign language. Through his YouTube channel at https://YouTube.com/@sign-language he provides free ASL instruction to over 600,000 subscribers. He is married to Deaf culture researcher and author Bee Vicars, MFA, who is also Deaf.