For about a year, I have been teaching myself sign language through a book I purchased and youtube videos. I think it’s facinating and I have fun learning it.
At first I did it for fun, but I really want to become fluent and take college classes for it. (im in high school)
Here are a couple questions:
1. When you take a college ASL class is it like starting from scratch? Do they teach you all the basics first or do they expect you to know them?
2. What can I do now that can help me learn more sign language?
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Where is it that you live? Many colleges have good ASL programs that you can take, and some that you can take while still in High School.
When you take a sign language class they start from the very basics like How are you and the alphabet, numbers, colours, etc. It goes over a lot of vocab like countries, and how to say simple stuff like activities you did during the day etc. They should also teach you the basic grammatical layout of the language. As you go farther in ASL, the grammar part of class will get more and more intense and specific, but in a beginning class, its very basic.
I would say as long as you know the alphabet you should be fine, and if you already have been teaching yourself basics like colours etc, then you will be ahead of the class.
What I would do is just try to learn and remember as much vocab as you can because once you know the voacb and you learn sentance structure in class, then you are good to go!
And of course always PRACTICE! lol I cant tell you how many students I have met that go to every class and study their books but when they go out and try to have a conversation, they cant because they dont practice enough (or at all)
So practice is key!