Opening the door
Jul. 18th, 2011 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandora_parrotIt is so awesome when you start to learn a new language. What used to be random gibberish suddenly starts to become actual words and concepts.
This Friday, I finally encountered enough people around me that know and use ASL that I decided it was time to learn it. I memorized the alphabet and began practicing finger spelling about everything I could get my hands on. I downloaded an ASL dictionary app to my iPad and began constructing sentences with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thespatula, who used to use ASL to talk to a hard-of-hearing friend of hers.
On Sunday, I decided to load up the ASL version of Re: Your Brains and watch it again. And that's when that magical moment of understanding happened.
Despite not knowing even enough ASL to carry on a simple conversation, what little I had learned during the weekend was enough to completely transform the video for me. When I first watched it, it was entertaining for the weird hand motions and pantomime that I observed during the lyrics, but I didn't really have a clue when it came to the signs. Now, I found myself picking out individual signs, being able to identify when the person was fingerspelling things, and even catching a few jokes/amusing bits that I hadn't understood before.
Before, my brain only saw static. Now, it saw patterns and information. It's quite a delightful experience to have. I even learned a few signs!
As with most things I try out, I don't know if I'll carry on with this, but it has one of the key elements that I generally need to get a new hobby type thing to continue: Other people around me know, use, and are learning ASL. So maybe I'll actually be able to stick with it.
WHY learn it? A few reasons, really.
1) It's really useful to be able to communicate visually. Whether in noisy environments, or to have a secondary communication channel when there are other people around. It's an entirely new channel of communication. I actually learned morse code to try to do this when I was in grade school, but no one else wanted to learn it, too... so I forgot it.
2) I have at least one friend, if not more, that sometimes go non-verbal. When this happens, they use ASL to communicate. It'd be nice to be able to understand what they're saying.
3) I myself find being verbal hard sometimes. Always have, since childhood. There'll be times when people are trying to talk to me, and I just find it really frustrating and emotionally upsetting to have to speak. Having ASL on hand when that strikes me could be a nice way to avoid the frustration.
4) Although I don't know anyone that is deaf, and only one person that is hard of hearing, I really like the idea of learning another language for the sake of learning that language and learning about those that use it. How cool is it that we get these opportunities to explore the languages and cultures of other people? It expands our understanding of our world and helps us to build better communities that are more effectively inclusive.
5) Every time I learn something new, I help maintain brain health and stave off the possibility of dementia when I get old.
This Friday, I finally encountered enough people around me that know and use ASL that I decided it was time to learn it. I memorized the alphabet and began practicing finger spelling about everything I could get my hands on. I downloaded an ASL dictionary app to my iPad and began constructing sentences with
thespatula, who used to use ASL to talk to a hard-of-hearing friend of hers.On Sunday, I decided to load up the ASL version of Re: Your Brains and watch it again. And that's when that magical moment of understanding happened.
Despite not knowing even enough ASL to carry on a simple conversation, what little I had learned during the weekend was enough to completely transform the video for me. When I first watched it, it was entertaining for the weird hand motions and pantomime that I observed during the lyrics, but I didn't really have a clue when it came to the signs. Now, I found myself picking out individual signs, being able to identify when the person was fingerspelling things, and even catching a few jokes/amusing bits that I hadn't understood before.
Before, my brain only saw static. Now, it saw patterns and information. It's quite a delightful experience to have. I even learned a few signs!
As with most things I try out, I don't know if I'll carry on with this, but it has one of the key elements that I generally need to get a new hobby type thing to continue: Other people around me know, use, and are learning ASL. So maybe I'll actually be able to stick with it.
WHY learn it? A few reasons, really.
1) It's really useful to be able to communicate visually. Whether in noisy environments, or to have a secondary communication channel when there are other people around. It's an entirely new channel of communication. I actually learned morse code to try to do this when I was in grade school, but no one else wanted to learn it, too... so I forgot it.
2) I have at least one friend, if not more, that sometimes go non-verbal. When this happens, they use ASL to communicate. It'd be nice to be able to understand what they're saying.
3) I myself find being verbal hard sometimes. Always have, since childhood. There'll be times when people are trying to talk to me, and I just find it really frustrating and emotionally upsetting to have to speak. Having ASL on hand when that strikes me could be a nice way to avoid the frustration.
4) Although I don't know anyone that is deaf, and only one person that is hard of hearing, I really like the idea of learning another language for the sake of learning that language and learning about those that use it. How cool is it that we get these opportunities to explore the languages and cultures of other people? It expands our understanding of our world and helps us to build better communities that are more effectively inclusive.
5) Every time I learn something new, I help maintain brain health and stave off the possibility of dementia when I get old.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-18 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-18 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-18 08:36 pm (UTC)I'm seriously thinking about signing up for a course on the subject. I see DeAnza offers such a course that actually fits in my time schedule. Now I just need to figure out how I apply for such a thing.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 06:32 am (UTC)weekend camp, where I was immersed and it started to flow like your talking about as my brain scrambled to put it all together. Immersion is awesome for learning languages.