I’m a college student majoring in Criminal Justice. I was thinking of fulfilling some of my elective requirements by taking an American Sign Language class.
How difficult is ASL to learn? Is it less or more difficult than typical languages?
Kirax – No, Sign Language is not universal. Some countries use the same types, but there are many different ones. For example England and Japan use two different types that are different from the American form.
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In some ways, it’s much easier to learn than regular American English. Sentences are much more simplified and action/object oriented, and a lot of symbols are intuitive. Like tree, where you make your upper arm look like a tree. Or the sentence “The ball rolled down the hill,” which is signed “ball,” and the motion of rolling down something.
Many of their symbols are arbitrary though, just like English words are, and so might be difficult to learn. That’s what comes with every foreign language though, and I think the simplicity of it definitely trumps the hard parts.
Learn ASL! It’s your key to a fascinating culture that we’re constantly around and not even aware of!
ASL can be hard to understand You can understand some, but you then cant see sometimes where the person is or what they are doing. It is easy when there is more of an english format signing if you know what I mean. ASL is a picture language and only that. Sign language is a picture language but they have words for everything too and is more english based making it easier for hearing english speaking people to understand. Sometimes what you can say in 30 signs(english), you can say in 10 signs (ASL). It can be hard, but than again it can be easy. The more you know the easier it gets.
You are correct Sign Language IS NOT universal. American Sign Language is the primary language of deaf people within the United States and Canada. In other countries, they have their own sign language. For example BSL (British Sign Language) is completely different than ASL. FSL (French Sign Language) is closer to ASL since FSL helped create ASL. Galludet, from the USA went and met Clerc (a deaf person from france) and came over and formed the first deaf school and American Sign Language. Anyway, it is more universal than other languages…but not really. I do believe deaf people could communicate easier anywhere than an English person could in like a spanish country.
Anyway:
ASL (American Sign Language) is not that hard to learn. It does require a lot of practice and dedication and many schools will accept 1 semester of ASL to fulfill 1 year of credit! This is because semester 1 you are usually in ASL 1 and second semester you are in ASL 2.
It does confuse many people since it does have its own sentence structure and it has its own syntax. Also, facial expressions are very important. Sign Language can move fast and so you must pay very good attention in the class. Also, remember you must be sure you are taking an American Sign Language class, not a SEE (Signed English Exactly) class. SEE sign doesn’t count as a foreign language since it has almost no history and follows English rules with ASL signs. SEE is frowned upon in the deaf community.
I think ASL would be an excellent language to learn.