Therefore to understand what ASL is, you must first understand what it is not. What the Student Must Understand Many students who take ASL enroll under the misconception it is easier to learn than other foreign languages. You could not be more mistaken. ASL is very complex. Many students enter the course thinking it is easy.
All languages are easy in terms of learning a list of words and phrases.
The difficulty begins in forming grammatically, syntactically, and culturally correct sentences as native users of a language do in day to day interactions. To compound its complexity, ASL s word order, its use of space, motion, intensity of motion, handshapes, body language, classifiers, and facial expressions are only the fundamental aspects its nature. Changing simple things such as the length of time a hand is held in a given position, or changing a handshape, hand position, or hand motion can alter the entire meaning of a word or sentence. Many of ASL s subtle components are mastered only with long term use of the language. The language is anything but easy.