I feel a little disheartened today. I've always wanted to learn BSL and just started this week finally. I'm really struggling at the first hurdle. I had memorised the whole alphabet pretty seamlessly within an hour, and I just confuse the vowels which I've heard is pretty normal. After a few days of practising the alphabet I had moved on to a test portion of my course which spells out names you have to try to understand.
I have an issue processing numbers, I cant remember them or relate them together well at all. And I also have an issue visualising the spelling of words in my head. I cannot spell out loud from memory (even with practice) I can feel the shape of the words leave my fingers as I type or write, I dont see them in my mind at all. I am not able to hear someone say P-E-N-C-I and know that L comes next unless I'm used to hearing that word being spelled out and its said in the exact same way (like in a cheer or a rap lyric for example. If I heard it spelled out every single day it might start to stick but it was have to have the same intonation). I will have forgotten how the word started by the time I got to the C in pencil, as I've not visualised the PEN as a thing yet, it was a jumble of a few letters that didnt form an image.
If I lip read the name I feel like I'm cheating, but I'm so used to half lip reading all the time that its hard for me to turn that off and concentrate on how to put those nonsense letters you just spelled out in a coherent order and then voice it in my mind to create the right word.
In my course I got completely stumped at one of the first examples on the test. The name he was spelling out was NOAH. I saw N, I saw O, then A and I just kept thinking the only name I can think of that starts NO is Norah, and there was no R next. A came next. I was wracking my brain trying to see a word that worked but all I could hear in my mind was Norah - nope doesnt work, Norah - nope I said already it doesnt work. When he ended with H I was like what on earth are you spelling dude?? what the hell name ends with AH -ohh its Noah. damn it.
Every single name he spelled just threw me unless I could get it from how he mouthed the name. I'm a bit disheartened that I will be properly set back by this.
