Best Way To Learn American Sign Language (1 Viewer)

I'm looking to learn American Sign Language. No big rush so I don't need anything intense. It's just been on my radar lately and I think it would be a good thing.

I know there are lots of new foreign language learning tools like duolingo and such. Is there something similar for American Sign Language? As always, I ask the FFA before googling. Thanks.

My daughter is doing this - she says youtube vids are the way to go.  much better than books or apps.

My church has a deaf group so all our worship services have an interpreter. It’s a good opportunity for a hearing person to watch the signs and listen to what’s being said. Mimicking the interpreter’s signs is a good way to learn. Not sure how much that helps you, but maybe you can find something near you where you can hear or read (hymn lyrics on a screen) what’s being said while also seeing the signs. 

Joe Bryant said:

I'm looking to learn American Sign Language. No big rush so I don't need anything intense. It's just been on my radar lately and I think it would be a good thing.

I know there are lots of new foreign language learning tools like duolingo and such. Is there something similar for American Sign Language? As always, I ask the FFA before googling. Thanks.

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 Why do you want to learn it? Just asking because I have thought about learning it as well, but not for any specific reason. Just seems like it would be a cool thing to learn.

JoeSteeler said:

 Why do you want to learn it? Just asking because I have thought about learning it as well, but not for any specific reason. Just seems like it would be a cool thing to learn.

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No specific reason, we just had a conversation with friends last week about how useless high school Spanish or French seemed to be and one person said their high school offered ASL as a language and said I thought that would be way more useful.

Then the next day we happened to be in a brewery in Denver and we met a deaf woman who didn't read lips too well and it turned out the taproom manager there was her friend and she'd been learning ASL. It was a bummer not to be able to communicate well well with her and we both felt learning ASL might be a good thing. 

Hov34 said:

My daughter is doing this - she says youtube vids are the way to go.  much better than books or apps.

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Thanks @Hov34   Would you mind asking her if she has any specific people on youtube that have been helpful? Thanks. 

I took a class at our church years ago. The woman teaching was legally deaf but had a cochlear implant so could hear. Her & her mom taught the class and it was really cool. I took the class just learn it as it was always a bucket list thing for me. It was a cool learning experience but I retained none of it. The biggest problem is you have to use it to become proficient with it and I'm just not in that type of environment. You also quickly learn that deaf people have their own language so while you will learn the alphabet fairly quickly, you don't really spell words out when signing. There are specific signs for words so it's truly learning a new language just using your hands. Kinda hard to explain but imagine speaking to someone, "hi, how are you?" You wouldn't spell each word out individually. It's the same with ASL. Each word has it's own sign so it takes a much longer time than the 8 weeks I spent to really learn the language.

On top of that, much like we have accents around the country, there are regions where you might sign differently for the same word, think "pop" vs "cola" type stuff. It can be a little overwhelming to be honest and I think one of the drawbacks for folks that have their hearing is you're really not forced to learn it. You can always fall back on the spoken word but when sign language is your only form of communication I think there is a much greater motivation to learn ASL (obviously). Really made me appreciate Helen Keller and those that are blind & deaf. Can't fathom how you would learn sign or braille when you are afflicted that way.