Hey, I was wondering if anyone on this site does ASL? I know a little bit myself. I have been teaching myself as well as learning from my older sister; she is an interpreter.

I believe it is a beautiful language that is expressive. It is like any other language with it's own alphabet and manner of "speaking" it. The way you place your words together reminds me of the Japanese language. For instance if you wanted to sign: "The cat ran down the road." you would actually sign "Cat road ran" because there is no real word describing down as a direction other then below. It is similar to how you would speak it in Japanese.

I'm afraid I don't know any myself, but it's something I've always wanted to learn because I think it looks rather beautiful. :)

I always feel bad, because you can't "stare" because it is a type of eves dropping, you know what I mean? lol

Yeah I know exactly what you mean.

Sometimes, I'm a bit cheeky and do it anyway though. :P

I just find it fascinating how people can communicate with just their hands.

My mom learnt sign language to better communicate with her students (she's a teachers assistant for special needs kids), and so all of us kids have been learning small words and phrases...

We've even taught our dog to respond to sign. So far she understands 'go', 'wait', and 'sit'... as well as 'good job' in French. (my sisters doing)

I know someone who taught their dog commands in German..

o.o

I work with special needs kids and have in the past worked at a school for children who were deaf and/or blind. It's funny, I can talk pretty well in Sign, but because most of the kids I worked with don't talk back, it takes me ages to "read" what people are saying and I need them to seriously slow down for me. It's a fun language though, makes it easy to talk with your mouth full.

I Only know how to tell somebody to...Go away in a not very friendly manner. I do think it's a amazing method of communication though, and i love watching it. I don't think i'd ever be able to learn it though.

My husband and I both know British sign language, which I believe is very similar to American sign language.

I definitely found learning to sign much easier than learning other spoken languages. I've always found learning languages really difficult, but signing kind of... makes more sense to me, if you know what I mean.

I get flak from the deaf communities for being hard of hearing and only being able to sign the alphabet. It's like they expect everyone that is deaf or with hearing aids to sign. When I tell them that I cannot sign, it doesn't matter if they cannot hear me or not, they will shun me or look at me like they feel sorry for me. I hate it, because it's kinda like discrimination.

yes i can sign songs, my mom is the leader of inspiration dancing at her church. She taught
me how to sign and ive performed with her before.

At one point in time I knew quite a bit of it.
I still know my alphabet and some main words and a few songs, but the actual common day use of it has diminished.

Leenalia: That's pretty terrible, but unfortunately I've heard of things like that before, like you're not part of "Deaf Culture". I've heard that there can be quite a lot of discrimination and a weird sense of elitism in a lot of the deaf community (obviously not from everyone).
Like, some deaf couples being really disappointed if they have children who can hear, or people being excluded because they have surgery to help restore some of their hearing, things like that.

Originally Posted by Cherish

Leenalia: That's pretty terrible, but unfortunately I've heard of things like that before, like you're not part of "Deaf Culture". I've heard that there can be quite a lot of discrimination and a weird sense of elitism in a lot of the deaf community (obviously not from everyone).
Like, some deaf couples being really disappointed if they have children who can hear, or people being excluded because they have surgery to help restore some of their hearing, things like that.

Yeah I know what you mean. There was this private school for the deaf and hard of hearing that I really wanted to go to back in Queens. I was being picked on in public schools for being hard of hearing, apparantly most students thought that if you wore hearing aids you were automatically a retard.

Well I begged my mom to let me transfer to this private school (after all, this center was where I'd get hearing tests and check ups), I thought if I was with people that were similar to me, I could make friends. I asked one of the teachers if I could apply there, and she flat out told me, "No, you're not deaf enough. You can hear and you don't need sign language".

I was crushed. </3 Ah well....life happens.

That must really suck, getting discrimination from both sides like that. You'd they'd be more understanding. :(

Nowadays when you tell someone wearing hearing aids, regardless if they sign or not, "no you can't do this because you are not deaf enough", they would look at you weird like if you hit your head. Who says that anymore? And what does that statement even MEAN to people like me? The early 90's were definitely a weird year.

I'm going to learn. I tried to teach myself using a book, but failed miserably. So now I'm enlisting help after I'm done with Spanish.

I dont really mean to laugh but..that was pretty funny. To be told youre not deaf enough? That is just horrible and hilarious at the same time. No offense...
One of my girlfriends was hard of hearing. She could hear me if I spoke up considerable of if she just read my lips. It actually lasted a good while I thought she was a cool person. But Everyone especially my family Constantly made fun of her for not knowing sign language. I thought it was kinda funny too but I didnt bug her about it. I was going to learn it and Then tease her every now and then but she cheated on me so I still dont know it lol. Im most likely going to take the class at my college though. I was so stoked to learn we had it and I can hardly wait to take it.

Sign language was a required course at my old school (we were small and we only didn't have any choice for our foreign language requirement XP). I loved it! I know a lot of people found it very difficult and dull, but seriously it was fun learning new ways to "speak"! I always had a hard time signing fluently, but, of course, I could only take it for one school year because the teacher left to teach at the state Deaf school.
My sister was always in love with it. She was even on a sign team. But me, I'm not that in love with it. I don't really remember too many signs save for finger spelling of course and also skunk! Eheh....

Oh wait. I know 'thank you'. Ive only seen it over 9000 times.

Now that you mention that, I know 'home', 'my name', and the alphabet.

Oh, I love sign language but I don't know much. Just bits and pieces from the alphabet, the pledge of allegiance, and a couple phrase/words like, "I want to make out now", or "Cat", "Spaghetti", "Tree". Lol.