Hard of Hearing / Deaf Language Learners

April 24, 2023 5:43 AM

I'm reasonably deaf or hard of hearing, which I've come to accept affects the speed and ability I have to learn my second language. I would like to do some 'dedicated practice' of understanding spoken Spanish with background noise or poor quality audio. I'm also interested in anyone else's experiences of learning languages with this restriction.

My specific hearing loss is within the pitch of normal adult voices, which makes me very sensitive to background noise, even in my native language.

English is my first language, and I'm studying Spanish. Most of the native speakers near me have moderate to strong Andalusian accents, so anything with those accents is a plus.

I am at the "Intermediate Plateau"- I can read young adult fiction in Spanish, order at a restaurant, or have a conversation in a quiet location if my teacher speaks clearly. I'm on the third season of the Dragon Prince on netflix, which I watch in Spanish without subtitles, and I understand 20-100% of any given scene.

I'm specifically looking for resources about the the following:
- Naturally spoken Spanish with accurate transcripts and poor quality audio, or background noise - Most media for language learning focuses on providing very clear and slow audio, which is not useful because I can understand it, but nobody in real life speaks that way.
- Information about lip reading in your second language
- Personal experiences

posted by Braeburn to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Is the level of accuracy in the Radio Ambulante transcriptions (random example--I remember enjoying this episode years ago but virtually nothing else about it) good for your purposes? If so, a lot of their episodes have a high level of background noise, they'll do interviews with people out and about so you get the ambient sound. You can find their transcriptions on the Spanish-language version of their website, linked from each episode. (Also, the correspondents all speak clearly, slowly, and audibly, but their interviewees have all different levels of articulation.) But it's definitely focused on Latin America. Similarly, El hilo, their spinoff Latin American news podcast-- interviews, background noise, transcriptions of the same kind.

There isn't a lot of Canción Exploder (link goes to my fave episode) but the transcriptions are detailed. I don't know if this is the right kind of background noise though, this is people speaking clearly and with fantastic microphones over music samples, mostly.

All of these podcasts were beyond me without transcription at your level of Spanish, but within my comprehension level with them, so I hope they're navigable for you! I'm going to look into some other options and get back to you if they pan out :)
posted by peppercorn at 3:33 PM on April 24, 2023

Best answer: Oh good, my favorite Spanish-language podcast in this style has great transcription! Lots of interviews out of the studio, too. Las Raras is a podcast that does "historias de libertad." The host-producers are Chilean so again out of your ideal linguistic zone but it's a broad variety of topics. Here's one that is particularly full of overlapping and poorly-recorded sound.
posted by peppercorn at 3:41 PM on April 24, 2023