Sign Language, that thing that we all mean to learn but usually end up forgetting… “I’ll do it next year”, “I’m just so busy”, and the ever popular, “There’s no time”.

Even though we are coming out of lockdown and are resuming lots of our usual activities it is likely that you will still have more spare time than usual, and learning a bit of sign language is a great way to use your time productively, as well as being extremely interesting and fun!

At present, around 151,000 people in the UK are proficient at sign language (this includes the 87,000 deaf people in the UK). This may seem like a very large number but when you break it down, it shows that most deaf people have just one or two people who can communicate with them fluently.  Imagine that you were in a foreign country where most people speak a language that you don’t understand, and you only have a couple of others who speak your language, you might be able to understand bits and pieces of what all the other people are saying but ultimately you can’t fully understand them.

Learning sign language is no different to learning a language such as French or German. A lot of people dismiss it as a niche skill, or think that they will never use it but ultimately it serves the same purpose as any language - to connect with, and understand, as many people as you can.

There are lots of great videos and free online courses that can get you signing some basic phrases in no time, and if you don’t want to commit to a course or program then you can always watch a couple of YouTube videos in your own time.

Just knowing the basics will help you reach out to other people, and soon you may even be able to understand bits and pieces of what that little person in the corner of the TV is signing! Just like any other language, sign language is interesting, useful, and truly worth learning.