{"id":6690,"date":"2022-03-17T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=6690"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:55:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:55:59","slug":"4-reasons-why-you-should-learn-british-sign-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/4-reasons-why-you-should-learn-british-sign-language\/","title":{"rendered":"4 reasons why you should learn British Sign Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-intro\">Sian gives four good reasons that you should give learning British Sign Language, or BSL for short, a go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m Sian and at the moment, I\u2019m doing a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/information-and-advice\/communication\/sign-language\/\">British Sign Language<\/a>&nbsp;course. BSL is a way to communicate using&nbsp;signs instead of spoken words. It\u2019s mainly used by people who are Deaf or have hearing impairments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve found that getting started with learning BSL isn\u2019t hard, and there are plenty of reasons why you should give it a go. Here are my top four reasons you should learn BSL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. It makes society more inclusive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>No one should be left out of life, and learning sign language is a great way to make sure no one is left behind. Even learning a few basic signs \u2013 like hello, goodbye, thank you, or the British sign language alphabet \u2013 has helped me with introductions to anyone whose first language is BSL, even if I can&#8217;t have a long conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to break down barriers? Learn some BSL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. It\u2019s a fun language to learn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Learning BSL is fun \u2013 it\u2019s not like anything I\u2019ve learnt before. I love how imaginative BSL can be. I\u2019m sure if you\u2019re anything like me, there\u2019ll be certain words you learn how to sign and enjoy how creative the language is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of my favourite signs is &#8216;arts and crafts&#8217;. You paint some lines with your finger, and then pinch your fingers on each hand together and touch them against each other. Here&#8217;s a video of me in Sign Supported English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed alignwide is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube is-style-primary wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sian&#039;s favourite sign\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pu8d19o5luo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. It helps you improve your body language<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You might not know that facial expressions and body language are an important part of BSL. The meaning of what you\u2019re signing can change depending on how expressive you are. Learning to sign can help make you more aware of your expressions and body language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Think of all the friends you could make<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the British Deaf Association, 87,000 Deaf people use BSL. That means if you learn the BSL basics, then you&#8217;ll be able to start to communicate with lots of new people. What better reason could there be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why not give it a try?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are lots more reasons to give learning BSL a shot \u2013 but I\u2019ll let you get started and you can discover what the benefits are for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sian gives four good reasons that you should give learning British Sign Language, or BSL for short, a go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[],"class_list":["post-6690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}