I took four years of Spanish from seventh to 10th grade, because it was required for students to take a foreign language, and I thought that Spanish would be the "easiest." From then, I have developed a passion for other languages and cultures, inspiring me to be a history major and a future social studies teacher. In college, I took one semester of Italian, even though I didn't need it for my degree. I took it for self-enrichment, because I think it's good to dabble in other languages. I did very well in it, partially because it is very similar to Spanish, partially because I am a fast learner, and partially because I tried very hard in it. I try hard in everything that I do, because what is life without passion?
I am now taking American Sign Language, otherwise known as ASL at a Deaf school. It is not affiliated with my University and I am not receiving credit for it. Every Wednesday night, I am attending a class from students who are as young as twelve years old to students who have grandchildren! Everyone in my class has a different motive and reason behind why they are choosing to learn ASL - others are taking it purely for fun, while others are taking it because their grandchild was born deaf and they want to communicate with him or her.
I have several intentions for learning ASL. I want to learn ASL because I love learning about new languages. However, as opposed to Spanish and Italian, which I learned almost effortlessly, I am having a very difficult time learning ASL, because it is a very visual and kinesthetic language, which I am not used to. Before I started this class, I thought that ASL was a signed version of English, but that couldn't be more far from the truth! Grammatically, ASL is different from English in that it tends to follow time-object-subject-verb order, such as "tomorrow school me go", as opposed to "I go to school tomorrow."
More importantly, I want to learn ASL because I want to be able to communicate with Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. In fact, this was the deciding factor that made me sign up for the ASL class I am currently taking! I work at Starbucks, so this really hit home to me because I personally strive to make all of my customers feel welcome and included.
Even though we live in such a fast paced and stressful world, we can take an extra couple of minutes out of our day in order to brighten somebody's day!
Here are some basic ASL phrases!
