Free printable
BSL family signs.
A clean one-page chart with the nine most useful family signs in British Sign Language: family, mother, father, grandparents, brother, sister, son and daughter. Free to print, share and use in the classroom.
Tips for practising
Helping the signs stick.
Family signs come up in almost every conversation. Practise them with your real family, with names you fingerspell, and in short sentences rather than as a flashcard list.
Go further with our course- Mouth the English word silently as you sign – this is normal in BSL and helps the other person follow you.
- Hold each sign for a moment when you’re learning. Slow signing is clear signing.
- Use the same dominant hand throughout. Switching mid-sentence makes you harder to read.
- Combine signs into short sentences: ‘MY MOTHER NAME …’ then fingerspell the name.
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