How Learning American Sign Language Made Me A Better Lawyer

I've always enjoyed learning languages. I am a native English speaker, my mother tongue is Cantonese, I have a minor undergraduate degree in French, and I took a beginner German course while on exchange in Hamburg, Germany. If I hadn't studied law, I would have probably enjoyed studying linguistics or mastering another language! American Sign Language has long intrigued me, so this past Spring I decided to finally take the plunge and enrolled myself in the 10-week introductory ASL class held at Bob Rumball Canadian Centre of Excellence for the Deaf. I am proud to say that I passed the 1A class and will be enrolling in the 1B class next term.

Being an ASL student reminded me what it's like to learn a new subject from scratch. I'll readily admit that it was hard! I greatly admire my enormously patient teacher, who was never frustrated at her students even when she had to repeat herself eight times for us to finally understand what she was trying to convey.