Asklemmy

I studied it for about 4 years doing a mix of learning and being a teaching assistant for the intro classes, but realistically I was conversational after 2 classes or about a year.

Some tips if you want to learn. I learned American Sign so your mileage may vary for others:

-Find out what sign language is primarily used in your country ASL (American Sign Language) in the US, BSL (British Sign Language) in England, I think some parts of Canada use FSL (French Sign Language) but I cant remember. Universal Sign exists, but is never used so dont learn that.

-Use your dominant hand for all single handed signs

-Learn the alphabet, there are not signs for every word that exists. Often times words are spelled out (fingerspelled) instead of having signs. So by learning your alphabet you can always default to spelling things out if you dont know the sign.

-Facial expressions are super important. They feel really weird at first and often times are what beginners struggle with the most, but they are used to show tone in the conversation and without them you are missing a large building block of the language.

-I found the best way to practice was to sign to myself instead of talking to myself. It helped me remember the main signs that I would use in conversation and helped me practice my finger spelling.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out. Im still very passionate about the language and culture.