About an hour to find something like Google Translate for BSL - any suggestions?

[barleyseed]

Meeting up with friends later, and one has invited a new man who is profoundly deaf, she has just said. Everyone is bringing pen and paper. i wondered if there is an app that could be set up on a laptop on the table which would translate speech into BSL, and vice versa? Of course he might know about it himself if there is - and if there isn't. there should be!

Does anyone have any suggestions please? I don't mind paying, up to say around £25.

Thank you

I don't know of any apps, but why translate to BSL - why not translate to text? In which case any voice recognition app - Siri for example?

That said, why wouldn't you ask her what they would prefer? He may be very used to lip reading and find a hearing persons suggestion of what he needs quite patronising.

well, we can write on paper if necessary, but I just think if he is used to using BSL it will be nicer for him, and a lot quicker

No, he is a BSL user

It's a thoughtful idea, but people generally already know what tools are best to help people communicate with them.

He’ll probably be very good at lip reading. Don’t speak slowly and over pronounce. Make sure he can see everyone around the table and that there’s good lighting. You can always use your phone to write something if you need to. The pen and paper is a nice thought but maybe just keep it in your bag.

I think avoid software, if its something he is used to using or wants to use he will likely already have it installed on his phone . As PP said, he is probably good at lipreading or he will have his way of communicating be that pen and paper or a technology version of his own

How does your friend communicate with him? Does she sign?

Just use pen and paper. Tried and tested method of comms.
or as tricky said speech to text on your phone.

But you could check out deaf awareness. It’ll include things like don’t cover your mouth when speaking, full face towards. And don’t over enunciate.

You could check out how to say hello or finger spell your name.

Signs for drink, coffee, tea are easy and obvious.

Bright bsl is a nice app if you wanted to pick some stuff up in the future.

Can your friend sign?

Yes my friend signs, that is how she met him. I have some certificates in sign languages somewhere myself, but very rusty. It will be dark, he isn't really a lip reader anyway - he is primarily a BSL user. Looks like pen and paper is the way to go! We can just take it in turns to be the scribe, and my friend can say aloud what he is saying. Thanks all

There’s something called signly but that may just be for websites.

It probably won’t take long to learn to sign your name then. I think that’d be a nice thing to do. It’s quite hard to receive sign if it’s not your first language.