I'm a hearing person who would like to learn sign language. ASL seems the obvious choice, since I live in the US. Google seems to think that between 500K and 2M people in the US speak it.
So why is it so incredibly hard to get language learning material for home study for ASL that isn't completely awful? A book, or serious of books, is out of the question: no serious spoken language learning system expects you to learn without ever hearing the language. Similarily, learning ASL without seeing the signs seems pointless.
So. Ask Google for learning courses for any major language, and you're innundated by taped courses, software, etc, etc. Try finding a decently comprehensive ASL video course. Like, one that'll teach you more than a couple hundred words.
It's hard.
Why is it so hard?
If you know of something decent, please send me an email.
Some things I've found, all of which seem ridiculously insufficient:
Help?