Would you look at that? I've returned with another post on this quaran-times topic. Totally going to be a series now, eh? So, today we ask, "If You Haven't Studied Another Language, Have You Even Quarantined?" Well, have you? As for me, I had been trying to brush up on, expand, and improve my Spanish in early 2020 with Duolingo. I had been canvassing, and while my particular assignments were not meant to require additional language skills, the occasional encounter showed me that my Spanish-speaking and comprehension skills were inadequate. Anyway, we weren't very long into quaran-times when I just wasn't up for continuing the task. That little green owl's reminders did not spur me on to further study and practice, and when the passive-aggressive message that it seemed that the encouragement didn't appear to be working and would now end, I was fine with it.
At other times, I considered starting a different language. Japanese seemed a good choice, and one that several of us in the family would like to learn and/or had practical reasons for learning it. I even looked at different programs, workbooks, and flashcards that we could get and share, but it never got beyond the idea phase. It's one of those things where I think we'd like to know how to read, speak, write, and understand Japanese, but none of us are ready to put in the work. Additionally, learning a language together can be great, but it does have some of the dreaded "group project" aspects to it, and perhaps it is just as well that we never really got going with it.
Then about a year or so ago, I became much more interested in learning a different language, ASL. I've always been interested in languages. I bought numerous phrasebooks and dictionaries and even took a couple of "classes" throughout my childhood, and ASL was no different. Of course, that's not how you learn a language. At best, you might be able to learn some vocabulary and phrases, but that's not learning a language. What can I say? I was a kid, and I was exploring my interests with the resources available. Anyway, Bruce being hard of hearing is another reason this language interests me, and I thought we could both learn ASL. Then, at about the same time, other people emphasizing the importance of learning ASL kept coming up, and I knew I needed to give this real attention and effort.
So, I started looking at how I would go about learning ASL. Let's be clear, we're not just talking about learning a few signs and phrases. I mean, I get how just that could be helpful in some ways, but we're talking about learning a language, and that takes work. Anyway, I began looking up books, as that has been my go-to, but I knew that just books would be seriously inadequate. Then I began a search for online courses, and that's where I found Lifeprint. It is an amazing site filled with resources that are taking me far in my language-learning journey. There are lessons filled with so much information. There is an official ASL University playlist of hundreds of videos. The instructor, Dr. Bill Vicars, is great. When I'm doing a video lesson, I like the way it sometimes feels like I am learning along with the students in the videos, seeing them confused at the same parts I am, and improving along with them.
I've learned a lot. I've also made some missteps on my language-learning journey, and I am working to fix those. Bruce has not chosen to join me in learning ASL, and that is fine. He has learned a few words and phrases, and that's helpful. I also see as time goes on, he is becoming a bit more interested. Maybe it will be like Call the Midwife. When I started watching that, he was very uninterested, but over time, he would find himself watching along with me and asking questions about characters and storylines. We've now re-watched all of the episodes and will likely do so again in the future. Maybe one day we will also restart these lessons and learn together.
I also had hoped that others in our family would learn, but there has been even less interest from most of them. I did not expect much. I expect even less having learned that many Deaf people's hearing family do not learn ASL. That is wild to me, but also not unsurprising when I think about it. Still, one young niece has been trying to learn the ASL alphabet and likes to fingerspell everyone's names. Another niece who is old enough to take the learning journey on her own recently asked me to re-send her the links so that she can start again with learning ASL.
I know I'll only get so far with the online lessons, videos, and books, but I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good. I've read what the generally agreed upon recommended, top-tier, gold standard, best ways to learn ASL are, and I know that I'm not doing them. Still, I'm studying, practicing, reading, putting in the time and effort, and I am learning. I even unlocked a particular language-learning journey achievement recently--the new language showing up in a dream. It wasn't much ASL, and the dream didn't make much sense, but I understood what was being signed, so there's that.
