General Chat

We had an amazing experience before Christmas in a hotel in Montreal.

I have hearing aids, but as everyone who has them knows, it can be hard to hear even wearing them when there is a lot of extraneous noise.

We went in to the restaurant for lunch, and when the server came, I said I had hearing aids and needed him to speak slowly. He laughed and pointed to a badge on his uniform. At the same time, he said "I am deaf, and I lip read".

The badge indicated that he was proficient in BOTH French and English. I can certainly say he was excellent in English!!

He then went on to explain that he could hear until he suffered from Meniere's disease about 20 years before, just as he qualified as a server. He had several bouts of fever, each one of which affected his hearing, until he became completely deaf.

He learnt to lip read in both his first language of French and in English, and was soo serving in top class restaurants.

He hated Covid, with the masks, and found that he became very depressed until the mandate was removed.

I watched him as he moved around, serving several tables, and he literally never seemed to have a problem.

He was an amazing server, and an amazing person.

I do subconsciously lip read from watching somebody talk but not properly as a lot of it is learning facial expressions as well. As Island says, absolutely no good when somebody is wearing a mask. Oh (not sure if I am allowed to say this) also not easy if somebody has a beard or speaks with a strong accent.

Something similar, a friend of my sisters was on holiday here from Czech Republic and was in a shop trying on some clothes when she heard the couple in the next cubical talking about their Czech in Czech friend not very nicely and when they came out she spoke to them in Czech, they were shocked to say the least and hopfully took more care after that.

I learnt sign language many moons ago (forgotten it all now) - and lip reading was occasionally handy then.
I only did stage 1. We had a lovely deaf teacher who would spend half the lesson reaching us signs and phrases took us to the pub - where we practised what we'd been taught. We weren't allowed to speak unless we were ordering the drinks :-D
Stage 2 was run by a boring bloke in a classroom, so me and my pal just went to the pub.

However, stage 1 enabled me to see that a group of deaf children in the mainstream school I worked in were saying awful racist things about a LSA I was stood with.
They got a shock when I went over and gave them an earful (handful?) and I reported their behaviour to their tutor.

no good with masks or sloppy speakers.

Thinking of taking it on and hoping it is relatively easy to learn, has anyone on here done it?