I’ve been learning American Sign Language through books and through a teacher for over a year now, so I’m not confident with the language yet. I’ve been to a handful of events to practice American Sign Language. I usually end up talking with one or two people near me. That’s comfortable enough, although I’m still pretty new to it. I got an email about a social event called a Deaf night out in my hometown. I live in Kent, a small Ohio college town. I hadn’t been to a Deaf night out, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I’m not Deaf, I’m hearing. But because I’m learning ASL, I went.
The spot they chose was in front of the restaurant Ray’s Place. It’s on a street that’s partially closed to traffic by wood barriers. It’s the only cobblestone street in town. The bricks lining the street are rows of kernels on a giant ear of red corn that make for a bumpy ride, but beautify the path.
I entered Ray’s through an oak-colored wood vestibule. The wall to the right is brown brick. Ray’s logo is opposite you as you enter: a mug of frothy beer with “Ray’s” in red. The bottom of the letter ‘s’ underlines the name. The whole logo is handwritten. It looks like only the moment before you came in, someone generous and enthusiastic about you being there wrote it. It’s packed as usual. I bought a piece of peanut butter pie and went back outside.
On the other side of the street from Ray’s is a unique brick building that was built as part of the railroad back in the post-Civil war era. Most of it is one story, with a lot of glass and brick alternating in hefty sections. There are three peaked roof sections that add a second story. It’s a solid, enduring building that’s more welcoming than imposing.
Standing on the street between Ray’s Place and the old railroad building is the crowd of forty or so people grouped in two circles. I presumed the people in the larger circle were nearly all Deaf. The smaller circle I was sure was a bunch of college-age women who were hearing like me but taking American Sign Language in school. I stopped in my tracks, hesitating. I wasn’t comfortable joining either group. As a man in my mid-fifties not taking classes, but on the other hand a hearing person, I didn’t quite fit with either circle.
I sat down at a picnic table to eat my dessert. I was on the outside of the Deaf circle; the college women were behind me. I took my time with my dessert, because I didn’t feel up to jumping in at all. I was even a little intimidated. Every moment I was eating provided another moment I had a legitimate reason for sitting and observing.
I thought everybody would eat. Silly of me. They came to talk. They’re not going to tie up one hand with a fork when they’re trying to converse. After I finished my pie, I sat there watching people sign feeling like a penguin at a flying contest.
I’m at a level where I know many words, but not near enough to have full-on conversations. As I watched them sign, I could pick a word out of every eight or so. It was overwhelming trying to follow what people were saying to each other. I felt like a duck trying to climb a sequoia. Grumbling, I reminded myself that I had to start somewhere.
Soon the larger circle split into three smaller ones. I was happy someone I recognized showed up: a hearing woman who teaches medical ASL at the university. She talked with a pair of college students. It seemed I was rooted to the spot, though.
A brown-eyed woman in her thirties came over after what felt like a long time, and we tried to talk. I tried eagerly to follow what she was telling me. I was lost as to most of what she was signing, but the gist seemed to be I should get up and try to sign with the others. She left too soon. I stayed put. I tried to tell myself there was no difference whether I stood in a circle or watched from where I was. Now I realize that if I had been standing, I might have felt a little more included in what was going on, even though I didn’t understand much.
Toward the end of the night, the whole group moved. I didn’t know what prompted the shift, but they moved about fifty feet toward the intersection. If I wanted to stay with them, I had to get up and follow the group. Where they ended up, there were no picnic tables set up, so I was stuck standing.
I found myself next to two guys. One of them was wearing a black and tan business casual outfit. The other I recognized as an ASL teacher I had taken a lesson from. The teacher showed us his phone, which indicated the weather for next week was going to be rainy. I managed to comment, “Rain is better than snow.” He demurred, but I wasn’t clear why. I thought he signed something about the roads he drives on being worse in the rain.
Those two guys went into a restaurant to continue talking, but I was done so I went home. At first, I told myself I wasn’t going to go to another one of these for a while. I had to learn more so I could follow along. But it was good I went. At the very least, now I might recognize some of the Deaf people who had been there, should I see them out and about. If I did, I could try to talk to them. I do much better signing with someone one-on-one than I do in a crowd. One-on-one it’s a lot easier and feels more natural to ask them to repeat what they said so I can catch it, or ask them to go slower.
After some of the bewilderment wore off, I changed my mind. I’d go the next time they had a Deaf night out.
Someday, I’ll be able to stand in a group like that one comfortably. Until then, I’ll keep at it. I know from my experience with German that it eventually gets easier. You have to sink a lot of hours into learning a language. It takes much more time and effort to make a small advance in language learning than anything else I’ve tried to learn.
American Sign Language is my third language, actually. I’m a native English speaker. I’ve learned German for six years, if you don’t count the couple years I had in high school, which I don’t. I remembered from those days how to pronounce everything, and little else. I recall a throwaway line or two from the dialogues we wrote like “I must go now.” Doesn’t get me far in a conversation, although there are times when it’s just what I want to say.
I find learning American Sign Language more difficult than German. It’s easier to remember vocabulary because you have to physically gesture to produce it. But you don’t have the written aspect to help you the way you do with German. For German, there’s reading, writing, speaking and listening. Sign Language drops the reading and writing aspect of it. And of course, listening in ASL is watching.
I’m sidelining German right now. I just finished a music history book and mess with an app, but I’m not spending time every day drilling vocabulary like I used to. When it was still new, I could happily spend an hour on that alone.
I try to spend about twenty minutes a day learning ASL. Twenty minutes a day works out to two hours if you learn six days a week. Ideally, I’d work on it every day, but it usually ends up being ten minutes here when I get the time and ten minutes there. I usually get in most of my two hour goal on Saturdays.
I have a German language exchange partner named Sally whom I met on the app HelloTalk. She is German and learning English. I speak German to her and she speaks English to me. Or sometimes, like our last session, we each spoke our native languages. It works nicely either way we do it. I don’t know the dictionary definition of every word she uses, but I’m familiar with enough of them that I can follow what she’s saying. My German, while still intermediate, is stronger than my ASL. While Sally and I talked last session, I looked up a couple of the words I wanted to use, which helped me. That’s what a language exchange is about: building vocabulary and getting experience speaking and listening to your target language. I’d like to get an ASL partner that I could sign with every week, too. That would make the learning go a lot faster.
Sally doesn’t know anyone else who is learning English. You get the impression that all Germans speak German and English, but that’s not true. Some have French as their second language instead, and like I say, there are some that for whatever reason, don’t speak English. I guess you’re more likely to run into English-speaking Germans in a larger city. The more rural the area is, the less likely it is English is spoken there. I’ve never been to Germany. That’s something I hope to accomplish before I leave this earth.
I got close once. I was about to get on a plane for Germany when I found I didn’t have my passport. We looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. I had to return home.
I was stoked about going. I would have been the first person in my family to go overseas.
All in all, I’ve had difficult experiences with American Sign Language and German, but different sorts of difficult. While working at German, I’ve felt like less of an outsider than I did at the Deaf night out because in those situations, I’ve been talking in a room where we’re all learners. We’re all fumbling over our grammar and using the wrong plurals, so it’s not like being by myself in a group of native German speakers trying to keep up. The expectations feel different, even if they’re only expectations I have of myself. This contrast made my Deaf night out experience more shocking than other language experiences I’ve had.
In learning a language, you learn to tolerate ambiguity. There are just many moments where you’re not clear what’s going on exactly. You have some idea, but you’re not 100% certain you’re getting it right. As the learner, you feel a little embarrassed the whole time. Even when a teacher is teaching you, it’s like that. I’ve just had to get used to feeling a little lost most of the time. My conviction God has something for me here keeps me sticking with it in spite of that. I go back to a night when I saw someone signing in front of a large meeting and thought, “That’d be cool to be able to do!”
And I think it will.
As of this writing, I haven’t “solved the problem.” When I go to another outing with a large group of people like this, I’ll have to confront these same feelings all over again. It’s a long, awkward stage I’m in, and there are no short cuts or hurrying it, much as I wish there were. I’m setting the stage for mastery, for the place where I won’t have to stop and really think all of it through every time I want to speak a sentence in ASL. Where the language will become secondary, and I’ll be able to focus on the people I’m talking to more. The point where all of my attention can go to the person in front of me instead of being absorbed in the feeling that I’m an outsider. I may never lose some of that. I’m a hearing person entering a Deaf world. I’ll always be “other” in some sense, no matter how well I learn ASL. But I plan to make some friends along the way, and that will make it a whole different experience.
Matthias Hoefler (he/his) is a writer who finds his cat mostly helpful in that process. When he's not teaching piano, he can be found hiking the woods near his Ohio apartment. His work can be found in Bewildering Stories, Bible Advocate, Creation Illustrated, and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
