this is one of the reasons it’s so hard to translate on the fly 😭 monoglots just don’t understand and think you’re bad at the source language 😟
i was trying to think how to translate/interpret this into ASL (disclaimer: i’m a hearing student and not very good) and this is one of those moments that shows off how very different ASL grammar is from English
i don’t have the brain cells to gloss this properly with all the right signs and classifiers (classifier = special kind of adjective or noun placeholder) etc right now but it has to look something like:
HOTEL US CL-5, STREET CL-G, STORE CL-5 CLOTHES, LOOK-IN THERE SUIT I LIKE WANT PUT-ON DECIDE—BUY? MAYBE
keeping in mind that as you explain the location of the store and hotel you are placing them in a 3-d imaginary map in front of you, and kinda zooming in on the store and acting out looking into the window (and this all happens very quickly because ASL is magic like that)
sooo much spatial info that ASL communicates very efficiently and English straight up leaves out. if you’re ever lost you’d be lucky to get a Deaf person to give you directions
(and that’s leaving out the problem i had interpreting this which is: what does it mean you “saw a suit,” was it floating in the middle of the store? no, there’s probably a mannequin. is there a sign for “mannequin”? i would probably have to fingerspell that shit and i don’t even know how to spell it. heck, maybe you’re acting out the description of the suit as if *you’re* the mannequin using role-switching! so for this gloss i just went ~whatever~ and put “there” lmao)
and depending on the conversation there’s going to be a lot more equally cinematic contextual detail—when this happened, how you got there, how the suit caught your eye and your reaction, etc—as a matter of course. there is a different set of cultural expectations for why you’re saying this and realistically, if you’re not already getting into detail about the suit and telling a little story, *this* is not the sentence you’re going to use!
it would more likely be an exchange, like…
“across from the hotel there’s a store I want to go to”
“why?”
and *then* you talk about the suit and how you’re all excited about it but you’re not sure it’s actually going to fit, or whatever.
English language/American culture??—has this assumption where you have to, like, justify your motivation at the same time that you’re saying that you want to do something. ASL (and Deaf culture) is more blunt and straightforward. that affects how you phrase things.
this sentence is *implying* you like the suit, but half the time in English we don’t say that outright because it’s seen as childish or gauche to literally say how you feel about things or show too much emotion in general. in ASL it’s like, if you’re not *feeling* something why say anything? and your opinion comes across in both what you say and your expressions, clear as day
and—at the same time!—this sentence is boiling down the entire process of going to the store to the objective: “try on the suit,” and the context is secondary. in ASL you’re expected to cough up the context first. it’s both heavily contextual and concrete. you can’t just say “i want to try on a suit—” apropos of nothing—like wtf, what suit? the one in the store across the street? well why didn’t you just say that first??
there’s no easy way to say, “so like, there’s this suit…” no, that’s nonsensical. why are you trying to be all coy and ambiguous? it’s clothes. just say “i want to buy a suit” or “let’s go to the store” or “this morning i was walking by the hotel and i saw…” or even “recently i’ve been exploring masculine fashion and…”
the context is not optional. it’s a completely different, much more direct philosophy of how to start a conversation. (and one that i, as an autism, absolutely adore)
Tagging @ace-in-the-wild-version2 for ASL stuff.
