Can someone who is severely deaf talk normally?

ash345 said:
... because my deafness has made me not know where I was born or raised...
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Haha! It's like ignorant people who ask twins if they get themselves mixed up! LO freakin' L!
 
I was raised completely oral...and my speech is pretty normal from what friends and coworkers tell me. A lot do not even know I am deaf till I tell them...or they see my hearing aids...I have very little accent at all, if any.
 
:hmm: I don't have an accent, however everybody else does... :hmm: :cool2:
 
dotcomkari said:
I was raised completely oral...and my speech is pretty normal from what friends and coworkers tell me. A lot do not even know I am deaf till I tell them...or they see my hearing aids...I have very little accent at all, if any.
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I was raised oral as well but do have the accent. Although I've heard people tell me my entire life I sound " normal ". It's not true. I see the looks on peoples faces when I open my mouth. C'mon...now.

For example today at work I went voice off. I got tired of being misunderstood and it was just a waste of my time to even try to communicate. I also had a stuffy nose which didn't help matters. I sound like I have a stopped up nose anyways...which I hate.

I'm getting very tired of being Oral Deaf. ORAL. I'd much rather take out my hearing aids which is what I did today and all the stress just melted away when I allowed myself to be ME.

on another note-while I'm at it ( typing, thinking too much) I do not think any amount of speech therapy can make my speech any better. I feel it was a waste to have all that therapy anyways. What purpose has it served me? None. Sure I can talk but I sound retarded. Well, according to the hearies anyways. If I just signed and didn't speak maybe the impression would be better? I've heard horror stories with ASL/hearies as well. Can't have it all right?

:hmm:
 
Jaspheth said:
I'm getting very tired of being Oral Deaf. ORAL. I'd much rather take out my hearing aids which is what I did today and all the stress just melted away when I allowed myself to be ME.
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I've thought about doing that too... it gets very frustrating sometimes.

What was it like w/o hearing aids today? Were any hearies bothered by the fact that they couldn't just get your attention as easily?
 
I have had an issue with my ears lately. We haven't been able to figure out if it's 1) my HAs not working well -- I have one in the shop now as it is, but the other? or 2) my severe allergies/sinus plugging up my ears or 3) I'm simply losing more of my hearing.

So .. some days I just go to work with no HAs. Not gonna fight trying to hear the barest minimum. What's the point if I can't even make it out? I would just as soon go for the 100% peace and quiet which is lovely!

My boss and co-workers are quick to catch on when I don't have my HAs. And they're very good about it. (If they weren't, I admit I probably would take issue with that!)

Anyways ...
 
Jaspheth said:
:) a swedish guy asked me if I was from sweden many years ago.
heh, I wish.
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I come from Sweden. We could test me. :wave:

It would be interesting to perform some kind of blind test for detecting accents and dialects. I think that HOH peopl are more sensitive to particular patterns than hearing people. For example, instead of focusing on frequencies, perhaps HOH people focus more on the duration of individual letters in a word.

This is pure speculation, but once brain scanners are good enough, you could do some kind of scientific test to see which parts of the brain are active and compare people's neurological response.

Another thing that strikes me is that I sometimes need a few seconds to process the sound after that someone is finished speaking. I do some sort of speech analysis and try to link letters into separate words and then the words into sentences. It may take a few seconds for me to respond, and the occasional impression is that I am retarded.
 
Wow, I cannot advance to the next page of this thread. I wonder why.... hummm...

Edit: now I can. I guess a post got deleted or something. go figure.
 
rockin'robin said:
I lost all my hearing 50 years ago (at age 14)....feel that the "accent" became noticeable in my 30'-40's, as I was often asked "what country are you from"?...(Hence, I would reply a lot of times..."Well, what tribe are you from"? :giggle:)....

I'm still speaking daily, and it seems I don't have a problem with adults understanding my speech, it's mainly kids/teenagers....
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I have been to both the UK and America. I speak some blend of various English accents. I do not have any particular 'deaf accent' that I am aware. People tell me that I speak perfectly normal irrespective of language (English, Swedish). I do have a slight Swedish accent when speaking German however.

And I cannot pronounce 'z' clearly. It becomes 's' instead. 'z' does not exist in Swedish, if you are wondering. If speaking French, 'Ils ont' becomes 'Ils sont'. It is so irritating. I realized after a while that I cannot hear French properly due to my hearing disability, so I no longer put myself in an uncomfortable danger zone.

Apart from accent, the most important thing to me is a proper verbal pause between words. Try to emulate Clint Eastwood and you know what I mean.
 
^^^Wow, how many languages can you speak? I'm always in awe of multilinguists.
 
HH scientist said:
And I cannot pronounce 'z' clearly. .
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Me neither and it exists in the English language. Every time I say "zoo" - people think I say "Jew". My z comes as out as J. It's very awkward. I now substitute zoo with animal park. To this day people still try so hard to help me pronounce it properly and I would always tell them to give up - if I still haven't gotten it right after 40 years, I never will.

If it makes you feel any better, Phillipinos have a hard time with "l" and "w" because those letters don't exist in their language either.

My stepmom's name is Evelyn but everyone calls her Ebby because her Phillipino family struggle with "v" which is also unknown in their language - they mean to call her Evvy but it comes out as Ebby. They pronounce "v" like "b". They would say "laugh" like "lap".
 
mbrek said:
^^^Wow, how many languages can you speak? I'm always in awe of multilinguists.
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Well, I have conversational skill of 3 languages (Swedish, English, German). I can read French, but I cannot speak it (because I cannot hear it). I read and hear Norwegian, because it is similar to Swedish. I can read Danish but I cannot hear it. I learnt some Russian many years ago. I met occasionally some Russians and spoke some phrases to them, and they said that my pronounciation was fluent, which I liked and thanked them for.

Just keep in mind that this is an intellectual pursuit. I could never become a linguist as my hearing is not good enough. Besides, there will be computers that can transform speech into text and translate between different languages. The newest Apple iPhone 4S has got some sort of speech recognition (speech -> text). Imagine that combined with Google Translate, and then you can translate speech via text from one language into another. There will be no need to study languages in the future.

Regarding languages that are hard to hear, it also occurs to hearing people. Many Swedes have difficulties understanding spoken Danish. But the opposite does not apply (Swedish is fairly easy listening to). And Germans do not understand Swiss-German very well. They are always complaining about making themselves understood after crossing the border to Switzerland. And the most difficult language in the entire world is of course Chinese, which is no secret.
 
DeafCaroline said:
If it makes you feel any better, Phillipinos have a hard time with "l" and "w" because those letters don't exist in their language either.
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Well, I get a better understanding of how the world works and I like discovering stuff, like an explorer.
 
^^^Even as a hobby, that's amazing (and very interesting)!
 
DeafCaroline said:
Me neither and it exists in the English language. Every time I say "zoo" - people think I say "Jew". My z comes as out as J. It's very awkward. I now substitute zoo with animal park. To this day people still try so hard to help me pronounce it properly and I would always tell them to give up - if I still haven't gotten it right after 40 years, I never will.
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I have trouble with my "z" too. It sounds too much like "d". I am like you, I try to substitute for something else (like your animal park example).
 
DeafCaroline said:
Me neither and it exists in the English language. Every time I say "zoo" - people think I say "Jew". My z comes as out as J. It's very awkward. I now substitute zoo with animal park. To this day people still try so hard to help me pronounce it properly and I would always tell them to give up - if I still haven't gotten it right after 40 years, I never will.
.
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SORRY SORRY SORRY i did laugh about zoo and jew. i didnt realize that jew and zoo pronounce very similiar. I ll ask hearing people to see what my voice comes out of it to pronounce jew or zoo. forgive me...
 
Myself who was unilateral, I get plenty of feedback and comments from a lot of hearing people who say my speech is "perfect and normal, I would not have known you were deaf unless you told me". "Did you go to speech therapy?" "Who taught you how to speak?" etc. I think they saw me as the product of some model AGBell oralist for being able to speak clearly.

I used to have profound in one ear and normal ~15-20db in the other when I was five years old. It's progressed over to severe (10db went to 60db quicky) over the years and I find I still have trouble saying certain words.

You know like those tongue twisters "How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?", well, my vice is "Rear wheel drive". I absolutely cannot say it correctly quickly without slurring the words unless I slow it down. Have had a case of the tongue jumbles at the mechanics before, and they were like "what??" :dizzy:
 
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