Immersing myself in the Deaf community...

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ChasingFreedom

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I am conversational in Sign, but I want to learn to be fluent and learn more signs and better grammar. If I were to immerse myself into the deaf community all these things could come to be a lot sooner and better than if I didn't.

My question... How does a hearing person with a busy life find a way to immerse theirself in a community that can be hard to find and very time consuming?

How long would it take to achieve the goals I listed before if I did find a way to immerse myself in Sign?
 
ChasingFreedom said:
I am conversational in Sign, but I want to learn to be fluent and learn more signs and better grammar. If I were to immerse myself into the deaf community all these things could come to be a lot sooner and better than if I didn't.

My question... How does a hearing person with a busy life find a way to immerse theirself in a community that can be hard to find and very time consuming?

How long would it take to achieve the goals I listed before if I did find a way to immerse myself in Sign?
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The deaf community is not usually all that hard to find, there are websites and other ways, including from whatever school you are learning/learned your sign language skills. How long have you been signing?
To learn any language, you have to immerse yourself into the culture of its users. If you want to learn sign langauage, great, but you have to MAKE the time to meet people and become fluent. To become completely fluent and sign as well as a native speaker... you can't, you will never be able to, you will always have a "hearing" accent. You can become fairly fluent, but you will ALWAYS have to keep signing, keep learning, and keep associating with deaf people.
 
To become completely fluent and sign as well as a native speaker... you can't, you will never be able to, you will always have a "hearing" accent.
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That's not totally true. Many people can become indistinguishable from a native user of the language with 7-9 YEARS of TOTAL immersion. *Total* immersion means no use of your first language while immersed BTW.

Chasingfreedom, given the constraints on your time it sounds as though immersion isn't likely. But don't despair, even additional daily or weekly use with a native signer will GREATLY increase your fluency.
 
hey. i have a life that is hectic as hell and i spend more time in the deaf community than anyone else in my class i bet. (Krys. you are excluded) it helps alot and it is true about the 'hearing accent' in my opinion. few poeple notice the small one belonging to me from what i have been told and asked but hey.. practice makes perfect... or kinda.... :whistle:
 
signer16 said:
To become completely fluent and sign as well as a native speaker... you can't, you will never be able to, you will always have a "hearing" accent.
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I disagree with you. Nas (my lover) is a hearing gal and she have only one deaf relative in her family (uncle). She didn't talk to him that much.. anyway she is signing so well that it is difficult for deafies to detect if she is hearing or deaf. Deafies tend to think that she is deaf until they realized that she is hearing whenever hearies talked to her.

ChasingFreedom, depends on skill, motivation, eagerness, learning curve, etc etc.
 
Sorry I was so grumpy in my last post. A family member had recently died and I guess I took it out in my post.
From what I had been told by the deafies i know, is that 99% of the time, they can distinguish a deafie/skilled coda from a hearie; if they are signing ASL. Apparently that's not the case, and honestly, that is very motivating! Hearing people have thought I was deaf, and a couple deaf people had asked me if I was a coda, but I thought the deaf people were just being nice. Chasingfreedom, you really do have to throw yourself into the community to become fluent, do the best you can!

good night y'all
 
signer16 said:
Sorry I was so grumpy in my last post. A family member had recently died and I guess I took it out in my post.
From what I had been told by the deafies i know, is that 99% of the time, they can distinguish a deafie/skilled coda from a hearie; if they are signing ASL. Apparently that's not the case, and honestly, that is very motivating! Hearing people have thought I was deaf, and a couple deaf people had asked me if I was a coda, but I thought the deaf people were just being nice. Chasingfreedom, you really do have to throw yourself into the community to become fluent, do the best you can!

good night y'all
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Signer16, no you don't seem grumpy at all.. I'm sorry
about your family member.
 
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