Introduction to Catalan Sign Language: Speaking with Your Hands and Hearing with Your Eyes (FutureLearn)

Learn basic Catalan Sign Language

During the course, you will practice a lot of “finger gymnastics”. By the end of the course, you will understand common signs and expressions, signed slowly and clearly, that relate to yourself, family life and work, and the immediate environment.

You will also be able to express yourself in simple terms, ask simple questions about everyday topics, and use expressions and simple phrases to describe well-known places. Finally, you will be able to sign short texts such as a story.

Explore Catalan Sign Language as a natural language of the deaf community

You will learn about the wider significance of Catalan Sign Language and about the importance of the deaf community having their own language.

Although Catalan Sign Language is recognised officially in Catalonia, often the deaf community can seem isolated. By learning about sign language, and the reality of the deaf community, both the hearing and the deaf can put an end to social exclusion.

Catalan Sign Language as an object of linguistic study

With interest consistently increasing in linguistics and sign language being a compelling area of study, Catalan Sign Language is a valuable research area for the world’s (sign language) linguists.

During the course you will examine a variety of Catalan Sign Language characteristics, including basic components of grammar such hand configuration, place of articulation, and movement; morphology, such as concordance and expression of plural; and finally basic syntax, such as word order.