having an asl moment
Sep. 27th, 2024 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isunshowerremember how this summer i got really into true biz? that author later recommended online the book in this sign by joanne greenberg, which is an older book about deaf parents raising a hearing child (and some other things). i liked it. it felt gritty and real and... uncomfortable? like, the main characters, janice and abel and margaret, at different points in the story are all DEEPLY unlikable. and they embarrass themselves and miss nuances and get confused at things that i, a hearing person with the benefit of historical context, instantly understood. but greenberg explains WHY they react the way they do. none of them are bad people--they're reacting to their circumstances based on their experiences up to that point. most of the time, they're reacting out of fear. so as uncomfortable as this book was to read at points, i still really liked it for that complexity.
i've also completed the first lesson of an online asl course. i now know several adjectives and can form very simple sentences! yay! i'm worried about retaining it, though. i have a tendency to start learning languages and then never practicing and/or getting bored and then losing everything; i don't want it to be so in this case, firstly because asl is useful when i work at a tourist attraction and secondly because accessibility and et cetera (this sounds very woo-woo handwavey, but listen, i went to bed at 3am last night, trust that i actually just don't have better words). i'd like to find people to practice with once i, you know, can use verbs, but i don't know how or where. cursory googling has only brought up in-person asl classes in my area, and i don't want to just find a Deaf space to barge into for the sake of practice. yknow? we'll see if i stick with it. it's interesting, though, not just the actual physical words i'm learning but also the readings about Deaf culture included in the course. i watched a really interesting video about protactile sign language.
i've also completed the first lesson of an online asl course. i now know several adjectives and can form very simple sentences! yay! i'm worried about retaining it, though. i have a tendency to start learning languages and then never practicing and/or getting bored and then losing everything; i don't want it to be so in this case, firstly because asl is useful when i work at a tourist attraction and secondly because accessibility and et cetera (this sounds very woo-woo handwavey, but listen, i went to bed at 3am last night, trust that i actually just don't have better words). i'd like to find people to practice with once i, you know, can use verbs, but i don't know how or where. cursory googling has only brought up in-person asl classes in my area, and i don't want to just find a Deaf space to barge into for the sake of practice. yknow? we'll see if i stick with it. it's interesting, though, not just the actual physical words i'm learning but also the readings about Deaf culture included in the course. i watched a really interesting video about protactile sign language.
