And I dance dance dance, I'm a cat, I'm a kitty cat, and I dance dance dance and I meow
meow moew.
I'm a cat, I'm kitty cat, and I meow meow meow and I meow meow meow.
So little did you know that I already pressed record.
Oh!
Anyways, hello!
Hello everybody!
So, um, today we will be going to answer some of your questions, today's questions is actually
from @ashton_photography9 I think, and the question was, "What is the best approach when
it comes to learning ASL?"
What do you think?
The best approach when it comes to learning ASL, right off the bat, the first thing I
would say is you gotta get out there and you have to associate with the deaf.
Find any type of deaf event or anything like that where you can get out there and meet
them, because one of the best ways to learn sign language is from the people, the Deaf,
that's their language, and they're the best ones to teach you because, you can take an
ASL class, of course!
Go to college, go to ASL 1, 2 3, 4 class, absolutely.
They're going to teach you the structure and they're going to teach you everything you
need to know about it and in the proper way.
The way they teach it however, is not going to be the way you see it in the real world
all the time, because you're going to see a lot of slang sign or just more casual sign,
so absolutely take the ASL classes in college, learn everything you can from there because
that's your foundation, that's gonna be the best thing for you, but definetly you have
to get out there with the Deaf and the Deaf community because they're going to teach you
all the other things that college can't teach you.
And they're one of the best ways to learn, is to learn from them too.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more, and, um, also the one thing to keep in mind too is
that one of the most fastest ways to learn any language is through exposure and there
has been studies done where, um, they'll record the amount of words that kids are exposed
to, and the ones that are exposed to more words will pick up that language more quickly,
and that's true as a child, that's true as an adult, and its really amazing the difference
just the exposure can have on you, and like Johnni was mentioning just going out into
the Deaf community, just watching various videos online, you can look up various YouTube
channels, there's um, Bill Vicars, there's SignDuo there are a lot of different sign
language channels you can watch, and also sign language dictionaries, but really the
most effective way is getting involved in the Deaf community and making sure that you're
kind of forcing yourself to use that language in a day in and day out basis.
Yeah, and find someone to practice with too.
You're gonna be taking your ASL classes, so you'll have other students, get their contact
information, setup study groups, do whatever you can, because you're gonna need someone
to practice with.
You can learn a language on your own eventually, you'll get there, but you'll learn at a faster
rate if you're practicing everyday, um, whether it's through VP or ... VP, that's a haha!
VP is a Video Phone for the deaf, sorry.
Whether it is through FaceTime or Skype or anything like that, just sit there and practice,
and that's gonna be the best thing that you can do.
Or find like an online study group, they're out there, they have 'em, I'm sure some of
you have seen his online study groups where its just an opportunity for you to just get
together with people who are also learning, who also understand the struggle of being
new, and being like, I don't know nothing.
That's ok, we've all been there, we've all started out at the bottom.
So its getting that support, because one of the other things that you're gonna need when
learning anything really, especially learning another language is the support, you're gonna
want a support system, to be like, "Hey, I noticed this" or "I've seen
it
signed
this way"
and you
guys
can
learn