I was born with hearing until I was three or so, at which point my hearing in both ears started declining for some unknown reason until I was profoundly hearing impaired. When I was sixteen, I got a cochlear implant in my left ear; I can hear well enough in day-to-day situations that people often don't realize I'm deaf, but I still can't do much with phones, so we're sort of in the same boat; regardless, I do understand where you're coming from.
It's still difficult for me to understand conversations in groups and ongoing environments. What I usually end up doing is the simplest approach: I say up-front that I have hearing problems and that it would really help me if people tried to speak in turns. I also try to choose my battlegrounds -- a secluded room as opposed to the middle of a busy coffee shop. The idea is that I give myself every possible advantage.
If that fails, I ask people to write something down, or to repeat themselves.
I'm pretty good at pitching ideas and leading discussion when I can leverage the environment like that. Phones are pretty much impossible for me to use, though, unless I'm in a very quiet environment. Some of that could probably be alleviated by practice, but a lot of it, I'm afraid, is just due to environmental noise/noise on the line/noise in their background/no lips. Teleconferencing is a bit better, if only because there's usually a chat option to clarify things that get mixed up in audio.
Whatever you do, though, don't give up. People can be remarkably accommodating if you tell them up-front what your problems are; don't let the one surly guy ruin your day.
I'm a native English speaker and learned Mandarin Chinese for a while (tones and all) and am still learning Japanese (6 years now). I currently live and work in Japan, using Japanese every day, and dealing with strange accents in English. It was a challenge at first, but I held my ground and now I've been here for four years.
Comments
I was born with hearing until I was three or so, at which point my hearing in both ears started declining for some unknown reason until I was profoundly hearing impaired. When I was sixteen, I got a cochlear implant in my left ear; I can hear well enough in day-to-day situations that people often don't realize I'm deaf, but I still can't do much with phones, so we're sort of in the same boat; regardless, I do understand where you're coming from.
It's still difficult for me to understand conversations in groups and ongoing environments. What I usually end up doing is the simplest approach: I say up-front that I have hearing problems and that it would really help me if people tried to speak in turns. I also try to choose my battlegrounds -- a secluded room as opposed to the middle of a busy coffee shop. The idea is that I give myself every possible advantage.
If that fails, I ask people to write something down, or to repeat themselves.
I'm pretty good at pitching ideas and leading discussion when I can leverage the environment like that. Phones are pretty much impossible for me to use, though, unless I'm in a very quiet environment. Some of that could probably be alleviated by practice, but a lot of it, I'm afraid, is just due to environmental noise/noise on the line/noise in their background/no lips. Teleconferencing is a bit better, if only because there's usually a chat option to clarify things that get mixed up in audio.
Whatever you do, though, don't give up. People can be remarkably accommodating if you tell them up-front what your problems are; don't let the one surly guy ruin your day.
I'm a native English speaker and learned Mandarin Chinese for a while (tones and all) and am still learning Japanese (6 years now). I currently live and work in Japan, using Japanese every day, and dealing with strange accents in English. It was a challenge at first, but I held my ground and now I've been here for four years.
So you can do it too.