the sign 'clean' uses both hands. Leave the non-dominant hand outstretched, with the palm facing up. Bring the dominant hand into a fist. Bring the dominant hand down and move the dominant hand in small circles against the palm of the non-dominant, like you are scrubbing it.
Sign 'I', 'need', and then perform the 'clean' sign by scrubbing your dominant fist in circles on your open non-dominant palm to show the action of cleaning.
Point to the person for 'you', sign 'room', and then use the scrubbing motion of the 'clean' sign, raising your eyebrows to indicate a yes/no question.
Sign 'we', 'all-day', and then use the 'clean' sign. You can make the scrubbing circles slightly larger or repeat them a bit longer to emphasize that the cleaning took a lot of time and effort.
Sign 'I', 'need', and then perform the 'clean' sign by scrubbing your dominant fist in circles on your open non-dominant palm to show the action of cleaning.
Point to the person for 'you', sign 'room', and then use the scrubbing motion of the 'clean' sign, raising your eyebrows to indicate a yes/no question.
Sign 'we', 'all-day', and then use the 'clean' sign. You can make the scrubbing circles slightly larger or repeat them a bit longer to emphasize that the cleaning took a lot of time and effort.
The variation taught here, using a fist to scrub the palm, is typically used as an action verb. It represents the physical act of cleaning, washing, or scrubbing a surface. If you want to describe something as being 'clean' or 'nice' (an adjective), a different sign using a flat sliding hand is often used.
Keep the circles relatively small and contained within the palm of your non-dominant hand. If you make the circles too large, it might look exaggerated or change the meaning to imply a massive, exhausting cleaning effort rather than a standard chore.
Yes! In ASL, your non-dominant hand should always act as the stationary base. If you are right-handed, your left hand is the flat surface, and your right hand forms the fist that does the scrubbing. Reversing this can look awkward to fluent signers.
