Wrap your brain around this....

As a hearing person, my brain works a certain way when it comes to language.  I hear a word and my brain automatically understands the meaning of that word.  The same applies to English, Spanish, Italian, or whatever language is spoken.  But American Sign Language....now that's completely different.  When we think of ASL, we want to immediately translate the signs into English words.  ASL doesn't work like that.  American Sign Language is a language all it's own, with totally different rules for grammar and syntax than any other spoken language.  While ASL does use an English Manual Alphabet (handshapes for the ABC's) to spell many words which do not have their own signs, that's about as far as "sign-for-word" translation goes.  On top of being a language of hand movements, ASL relies heavily on facial expressions as well. The same sign can have 2 different meanings depending on the facial expression and movement. For example, to sign that you understand something you put your closed hand near your temple and raise your index finger while nodding your head 'yes'. To sign that you do NOT understand something, you make the same exact hand movement while shaking your head 'no'.  ASL is used more to convey an idea or story than actual 'words'.  THAT is the hard part about learning ASL for hearing individuals.  We have to change the way we think about language.  We have to wrap our brain around the idea of language as being more similar to a game of charades.  Nearly every day I have to force myself to think of an alternate message of something I want to say to Shea.  I'll have an English thought in my head and have no idea how to communicate that thought to her in ASL, so I make myself think of whatever it is I want to say in an entirely different way until I figure out how to get my message across.  And it works!  Once you train your brain to think differently about language, ASL becomes much easier to understand.
One of the wonderful things that we have recently come to learn is that ASL is becoming widely accepted as a foreign language option, not only in colleges and universities, but in high schools across the country as well. We recently went to Chick-Fil-A at our local mall for supper one evening and the lovely young girl behind the counter absolutely lit-up when she saw us signing with Shea.  When we got to the counter she asked us if she was deaf and we said that she is.  This young lady was so excited she could barely contain her fingers!  She is home-schooled and had chosen ASL as her foreign language block.  Yay for homeschooling with ASL!  She was an excellent signer and I think she enjoyed conversing with us in ASL as much as Shea enjoys meeting new people to sign with.
And, of course, my favorite word comes out of all this: Sign-impaired.  Deaf people are not hearing-impaired, hearing people are merely sign-impaired.
Come learn a new sign with us today: Signing with Shea on Facebook