Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!think.com!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!343!71!Verna.Forristal
From: Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Verna Forristal)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Lipreading foreign languages
Message-ID: <15781@handicap.news>
Date: 23 May 91 19:29:25 GMT
Sender: wtm@bunker.isc-br.com
Reply-To: Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:343/71 - Seattle Hearing Imp, Seattle WA
Lines: 30
Approved: wtm@bunker.hcap.fidonet.org

Index Number: 15781

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

 AS>  > many orientals speak quite readable English by my standards
 AS>  > (except for Filipinos and Indians, who are almost as
 AS>  > difficult for me to read as the Brits).
 AS>
 AS> Geronimo is just 5 miles south of here?)  I come in contact
 AS> with many from all parts of the world but still have more problems
 AS> reading/understanding those from VietNam, Cambodia, Phillipines
 AS> and such more than any others.  I don't have a difficult time

This is not unique to lipreading.  Being a hearie, I also have problems with
understanding the Asian Indians and Vietnamese, etc.  I think the problem
comes in the peculiar way they warp the English language (this is not intended
as a put down).  An Indian friend of mine substitutes P for F so she eats pood
rather than food, etc.  It took me several weeks to get more than "26%" of
what she was talking about.  The funny thing about it is that she has been in
the US for 12 years, but doesn't seem to have any interest in learning to
speak more clearly (form the sounds correctly) even though she gets rather
frustrated when others don't understand what she is saying.  It seems to me
that it would be much easier to read someone who spoke their native tongue
clearly (assuming you know that native tongue) than to attempt to read
someone who is speaking a language which is foreign to them, and they can't
correctly pronounce.  Just a thought.

--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!343!71!Verna.Forristal
Internet: Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org