Speaking and Listening
I’ve mentioned before in here that I’m a bit deaf. Probably the result of many childhood ear infections and too many teenage (and beyond) too loud concerts and gigs attended. So now I’m a bit deaf and like anybody with any sort of disability (because it is, isn’t it?), I have strategies to work with it.
My actual problem is in the speech range and to a certain degree, in differentiating sounds. So I can hear a quiet voice when all around is quiet, but I might not hear a loud voice if the background noise is also loud. Telephone conversations are never a problem, because having the receiver pressed against my ear blocks out other noises.
Anyway, one of the strategies I use is paying more attention to inflexion, emphasis and cadence in speech. I can often make a kind of intelligent guess when I hear part of a word as to what the whole word is because of where the emphasis of the word is placed. It helps that I know that the most common vowel sound is a schwa, so if I hear that sound, I know there is an emphasis elsewhere in the word. The rise and fall of speech also helps, simply because it makes it more interesting to listen to.
I called the organisation yesterday where I booked my holiday, because the price charged was more than expected (this never happens the other way round, does it?). The customer service lady that I spoke to was Asian and straightaway, I had problems. The lady spoke very fluent English and she spoke plenty loud enough for me to hear the ‘noise’ of her voice, but because I’m so attuned to expression and inflexion, I couldn’t understand her! I know it was because her English didn’t allow for the schwa – so every syllable was spoken with the same emphasis and this also led to the expression in her speech being ‘wrong’ in context.
Yesterday’s experience was probably quite extreme, but I’ve had similar at work with a couple of Asian employees that I have to speak with sometimes.
But I feel that I can’t say anything because it would be racist or somethingist. There’s no way on this earth that I could request to speak to an English person instead of the Indian lady (who is really nice, very good at her job and IS the person I need to speak with) just because she has an accent. Anyway, there probably wouldn’t be anyone else with the right knowledge for the conversations we need to have. I guess I’ll have to invent a new strategy to "hear" her.
Thanks diary, for letting me write about things that I’m not comfortable talking about in real life.
That’s terribly difficult. I hope that you can find another stategy that resolves your difficulty.
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It actually annoys me that you’re made to feel uncomfortable about it. You’re not being ‘ist’ you’re suffering from something that causes you a difficulty, and your problem isn’t personal, it’s just a tonal thing. But I do understand why it can be so difficult. We live in such a volatile world these days, where so many things can be labelled as ‘ist’ when in reality, they’re not.
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I’m noticing how hard it is for me to hear sounds I used to be able to hear very easily. My husband has learned to talk very loudly. Can you get a phone with an enhanced volume?
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Accents can be hard sometimes, even without a hearing problem. When I was in Germany, I got to experience being the person with the accent. It was frustrating when people clearly couldn’t understand me even though they were trying to follow me. It was something else when people spoke to me in English that was worse than my German because they were trying to win the lingual pissing contest.
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Oh, I know what you are talking about, shwas and all, even though I have (had) no hearing problem. (It’s just beginning to get a bit dodgy now.) When i was 26, utterly inexperienced in accents other than our Australian one, I went to work in Malaysia, and for the first week or so found everyone except my two fellow Aussies incomprehensible. (That included two young US Peace Corps volunteers, particularly the one from Tennessee.) Malaysian and Indonesian English speakers often pronounce each syllable of an English word with equal stress, also mispronounce the shwa as its written vowel. Utter confusion, if you aren’t expecting it! I found that continuing exposure gave me the skills to comprehend, and quite quickly. But that’s no help to you. Can you, in such situations, say something like “I’m so sorry, but I have a hearing problem and I can’t hear you clearly. Is it possible for us to continue this conversation via e-mail?”
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That is tough, and it is a shame that you are made to feel uncomfortable about asking for what you need. Would it be possible to ask to talk to a manager and explain your issue to them? Or, could you ask someone else to sit in with you and put the call on speakerphone?
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I so know what you mean. The problem with English spoken by non-native speakers is that the ‘music’, the prosody, word stress, intonation etc is from their own language. So if don’t listen carefully for a bit it seems as if they’re talking a foreign language, not English at all. Unfortunately, many people can’t hear that they’re doing this. Language is so much more than just the words and grammar!
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It’s not racist. Maybe find a way to listen to Asian accents far more than you normally do? Ah, that’s pretty impractical.
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That is a difficult problem to solve, socially.
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RYN: *grin* Yes, eating with chopsticks is a very good way to eat slowly. I’ve been doing it for more than forty years, on and off, and they still slow my eating down.
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Hearing is taken for granted my so many….. as I’ve aged I’ve become aware of hearing loss. Recently my son introduced me to “teen repellent noise” that is used in the UK…. I could not hear it or several higher levels. Amazing.
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RYN: it’s a mystery…
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That’s quite a toughie to get round. Arbi had a good suggestion re the e-mail though although it’s not ideal.
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You’re right .. too many gigs. I the quiet I can hear a pin drop .. but with background noise, I can’t hear a thing, sometimes. Maybe you just need to listen to more Asian English for a while?
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