My co-worker is retiring soon, and is considering learning sign. He says once he does so he can easily get a part time jobtranslating at a college near by.
He has no experience with sign language, and has no family or friends who use it.
How long does it take to learn to sign, and is there any demand for people who can?
I don’t know how long it takes to learn; I imagine it would be fairly similar to learning a spoken language. Some people can learn languages very quickly, some struggle a lot.
I can tell you that there is a high demand for sign language interpreters, especially in colleges with deaf students. (There are a lot more deaf people than most people think.)
Much to my chagrin, we have people at our college asking to interpret (terp) in sign after one sign class! IF the college cant find anyone else, they may accept that person though.
They would need a couple of sign classes & the college would have to have deaf students, obviously.
Sign language is difficult to pick up. (But as handy said, that doesn’t stop everyone.)
A sign language class would probably be helpful for basic skills with “signed English”, which is kind of a word-for-word translation. But deaf people do not use this. Deaf people would understand what he is saying, but he would have no idea what they are saying.
But maybe the class is a good one that teaches proper ASL. If that is what he wants to do, then go for it.
Another problem is speed. Deaf people sign very fast. It takes a lot of practice (years?) to become skilled with that.
My brother is deaf and I grew up being able to sign fairly well. But now that we both moved away, we mostly communicate via email, TTY, etc. My signed skills have deteriorated through lack of use.
I don’t know about the demand for such translators. But I do know that one of my brother’s hearing friends is getting into that line of work.
ASL has its own grammer, they teach that in the class. Some Deaf people use that grammar, some don’t. I don’t. It’s too weird for me. e.g.
english: “I am happy”
asl: “I happy I”
You get people of all ages in those classes & tons of women! Best place on earth for a guy to meet a woman is sign class, especially the early ones.
May I recommend http://www.lifeprint.com? This site offers a free online course (no certificate of completion) or the same course with instructor & certificate of completion for a fee.
You wouldn’t expect to get a job as a spanish interpreter after one class in spanish, would you? My nephew is deaf. I’ve taken several sign language classes, and I can communicate the basics, and I can understand what he signs. But whenever he starts signing at normal conversation speed I completely lose it, I can’t follow the individual signs.
You’d be better of just writing down what the speaking person is saying rather than try to sign it, if all you have is a couple of classes. Of course, some people learn fast and immerse themselves totally. It depends on your language skills.
I used to work for a deaf woman and the whole ASL thing is not what most hearing folks think! Too many think it’s just some sort of simple code but it’s really a language as complex and subtle as any spoken language.
Getting adequate interpretation was a struggle, even for basic communications. My ex-boss has excellent lip-reading skills as well, so sometimes (only sometimes) she could pick up a little of what a bad translation missed, but over a phone or in a crowded room with multiple conversations that was not possible.
Translation requires true fluency in two languages - Sign and a spoken language. You’re not going to get that after just one class.
Then you get specialized translation - ASL for legal, for medical, etc. My former boss was a medical researcher, we needed to find ASL terps famillar with some very esoteric medical terminology.
It was a real struggle at times. And were not even going to get into the hassles from paper-pushers and bean-counters whining “Why can’t you use THIS service? Their translators cost half as much per hour!” Well, yeah, because they’re incompetant, maybe? Geez.
There are programs in my area that will certify someone as an interpreter after about 4 years. Two years of learning sign language and 2 more years of training as an interpreter. Not something easily done.
Like has been previously said, if he’s around it more, he’ll learn faster. If the only place he signs is in ASL class… then…
But, yes, there is a demand.
Thanks for that link Monty. Looks interesting.
RID certifies people to be terps. You don’t have to be certified. Certification from them costs about $900.00
There are state certification programs for ASL for $100 but I haven’t found them.
You don’t have to be certified to terp but you get paid more if you are.