Learn American Sign Language

I did do… half of this class. My mom started declining and eventually died, so I got distracted. However,I did also buy myself a sign dictionary and have been working from that.

I don’t have a good sense of when this goal will be “done,” exactly. Will I need to be completely fluent? That will probably take a series of courses and some sort of cultural immersion. Or maybe that’s not even actually possible.

My school district is doing adult ed classes for ASL this semester (and has for most semesters). I’ll start there.

I will sign up for the course, pay the fee, attend the classes, and according to the syllabus, I’ll learn to fingerspell (which I can do most of already if I think hard about it, but hopefully this’ll help it come faster) and attain some basic vocabulary.

I don’t think I want to stop there, though. This is an intro class. I’ve seen them offer intermediate classes (though not this semester). I know I want formal training in ASL grammar and practice thinking within that grammatical construct with the aid of a fluent teacher.

I’ll start with the class, though, and see where it gets me.

While I haven’t even started on this one yet, I love watching the better ASL videos on YouTube, especially ones that are interpretations of songs. Granted, they fluctuate in quality. ::grin:: One of my new favorites actually isn’t ASL, it’s BSL (british sign language). Still, it’s nice to watch and get a sense of what true ASL versus signed English is, who does and doesn’t have it and how well the thoughts get across.