Please help! I am getting my A.A. degree in general ed. and I need to fulfill the foreign language requirement in order to go to Florida State University. My options are limited: French, Spanish or American Sign Language. I was leaning to Spanish but then a friend told me to go with sign language because it was easy. I don’t know what to do!! Please help!!
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in Florida, spanish will be more useful – particularly since you’re going for teaching.
I’ll start off by saying that I’m level 3 certified in American Sign Language (ASL) meaning I would only need to take another year to be eligible to interpreter licensing and took I three years of Spanish in college to qualify for a Bachelor of Arts.
First off, I would say figure out if the American Sign Language offered is actually American Sign Language or if it’s Signed English because in both high schools and colleges/universities, the coursework could just be Signed English. The difference between the two is that American Sign Language is an entirely different language with it’s own grammar structure, which more closely resembles an Italic language structure (like French or Spanish), while Signed English is literally English translated into Signs word for word with no altering of sentence structure. Deaf people rarely, if ever, actually use Signed English so if the offered coursework is for Signed English then don’t take it. If the type of sign language is not listed in any information pamphlets, talk to the teacher. If they’re not sure what you’re talking about, ask if they teach a sign for the word “the”. If the answer is yes then they’re not teaching American Sign Language. If they give you an answer saying they start out teaching Signed English then transition to American Sign Language for the second half of the coursework, be wary. Once students learn Signed English, it’s infinitely more difficult to transition between the two.
As for Spanish, in Florida, and most of the United States, this language would be more widely usable. There are greater numbers of people who speak Spanish than know ASL and can be used more readily outside the country. ASL, for the most part, is only good in the United States as even Britain has their own sign language different from ours.
Comparing the two, Spanish is all conjugations and vocabulary and there’s a lot of language rules like spelling exceptions for rote memorization. Sign language is a visual language. For a lot of things, simply drawing pictures in the air is what the signs are. You can also fall back on finger spelling if something is still unclear. Because ASL is visual, it’s easier to memorize the vocabulary and it’s easier to get ideas across when you don’t have the actual vocabulary.
So to definitively answer the question, ASL is easier than Spanish to learn, or at least it was for me. But just keep in mind that Spanish is more useful for everyday use and sign language can be useless if it’s Signed English instead of ASL.