Alright, I'm new to ASL, i won't start taking classes for a few months,
but If I don't start picking up faster I'm going to go crazy.
Something that I'm not clear on is the subject to verb agreement I think.
I know in English you'd say something like "Susie runs" but in ASL
it is different I believe, like "Runs Susie".
I'm not really sure how it works. If some one could explain, maybe give a few
examples or a site that would help.
Any help is greatly appreciated
.
Like most things described in English ASL is much easier to do than it sounds. Partly because the signing community, by and large, is much more forgiving of errors and lapses than the hearing community, and partly because as a language it makes a lot more sense.
When you talk about ASL in English it sounds difficult and complex, but when you understand ASL it is the English that is insanely obtuse, complicated, and difficult to understand its relationship to the real world.
The hardest part is getting past what you have been programmed to think of as "good English grammar", then developing a solid vocabulary of signs to use -- and then developing the receptive skills to understand what is signed to you. Receptive skills are the hardest to develop and the first to lose from lack of use -- The voice of experience here, most of my competency in ASL has deteriorated from lack of use to the point where I feel like an idiot when I try to use it.
Below is a list of some of the garbage English speakers think they need to communicate and ASL users know they do not.
First forget English: ASL is not. Forget words, ASL uses signs: Words are limited in meaning, signs are inclusive; if a picture is worth a thousand words think of every sign as a moving picture. Forget grammar as you know it: ASL does not use it. Forget pronouns: ASL uses spatial indexing. Forget adjectives, adverbs, etc: ASL has a few but seldom uses them. Forget clauses, they break up the timeline in English: ASL begins at the beginning, puts the middle in the middle, and ends with the ending; clauses just get in the way of the time flow.
Forget sentences; sentences use subject - verb - object: Think topicalization; you establish a topic, establish a location for that topic, and then make comments about it. When you are done with that topic you move on the next. When you refer back to a prior topic you will point where you placed it: which in typical English would be referred to as "Spatially indexing its established location."
Once again it is easier than it sounds. I hope this incites your curiosity rather than intimidates you. Just remember, forget English and start from scratch as though you had no language and needed one.
