Kansas City Tacoma Crew - 816/913

Yeah, just me. Just me do dat...

I'll see myself out.

 

Well now I gotta know more... Drew... lol Have you always been in the KC area?

 

Yep. On and off for 35 years. I have a strange memory and have picked up some basic conversational fluency in a few languages. I've been trying out Russian for a few months but with no native speakers to practice with, my knowledge is limited to written right now.

 

That's really neat. Im fluent in Russian. But that's because I immigrated here back in the 90's and somehow managed to retain it. Now if I could just get my wife to learn Russian...

 

The trick is to teach your kids. Then there will be an incentive. I have a friend who is a true polyglot and spent a number of years doing missionary work. He works from home and communicates with his son in Swahili sometimes. His wife started learning very soon after she found this out.

Or if you are close with your family, and they get along with your wife, it's a great way to engage distant relatives. My own family has a strong Syrian lineage and my grandfather's friends spoke very bad English. My grandmother learned a bit of Arabic so that she could be a polite host when they would come over for cards or dinner.

 

Tu Tiene Mota.

And I agree with teaching kids languages at early age. ESPECIALLY ASL.

 

Eso es ilegal y probablemente no debería discutirse...

Pero... No. He estado sin eso durante muchos años.

So interestingly, my mother taught me simple toddler ASL before I could talk and that pushed my verbal communication to much later than normal. I obviously have no issues now, but we were at dinner the other night and couldn't hear each other and ended up using signs to finish our conversation.

Again, I'm a nerd from a family of nerds. So my situation is far from normal, but it proves the point that it's important that we all learn new ways to communicate.

 

Decriminalized in KC and pushing for recreational after approved for medicinal.

I am deaf and it is hereditary. However, family had hearing aids and there were no other kids with my disability growing up, so I never learned ASL. How I so wish things were different so I had that knowledge.

 

It's never too late. When we moved into our current home, I blew one of my neighbor's mind after I started signing to her when I walked my dogs. I couldn't figure out why she never would talk to me outside on the sidewalk. Turns out, she's like 85% deaf.

 

I agree, it's not too late. I try to pick on bits and pieces but I personally can't retain the information like a new language unless I'm consistently speaking it.

Like said, no kids growing up, my mom's mom, mom, sister, uncle, and myself were all deaf, but had hearing aids so we were able to communicate through voice. So I had no one to consistently sign with, so I was not able to learn ASL. I find it amazing that folks can keep up with how fast the hand moves and understand the meaning.

 

One of my favorite things about ASL is that nobody that uses it as their main language cares about proper grammar. If you watch translators, they are giving you all the important ideas and info but cutting out all of the complicated grammar.

So if you wanted to say "ENORMOUS!" You'd just sign something like "big, big, big." Well, that's my experience anyway. And as you might imagine, speaking and signing at the same time is very valuable to a lot of hearing impaired people, as they can often hear some sounds decently and they can add nuance to the simple signs.

I obviously feel like typing today.

 

And I appreciate the typing as it is the best form of communication for me!

Facial expressions are definitely important in ASL too as that can show more along with the signing.

 

Which is another language. I imagine that "context" of whats being communicated also would play a part in the speed and omission of some of that.

 

For sure. Eye and mouth movements, other non-word gestures, and personal relationship and context are hugely important in languages that are essentially stripped down to primary ideas. Not that the words don't exist in ASL, just that they aren't commonly used.

I can't imagine how difficult it must be to communicate with these masks on. I honestly do feel for you in that.

Now, if you look at a language like Russian... basically very little structural grammar or syntax as English speakers understand it. It has a lot of nuances built into it and for that reason, Russian literature and poetry is absolutely fascinating and rather elegant.

@Genypig Do you have any recommendations for reading that might be at my level?

 

Yeah, masks have been extremely difficult. I literally sat for 2 hours in a meeting 2 days ago not understanding a damn thing. A lot of folks I come across do notice that I may have an hearing impairment and drop their mask temporarily so I can read their lips. It has been much appreciated. My uncle has been advocating for folks to wear clear masks, but it's not possible to convince everyone or as he's been trying to do, buy bulk, and give it away to folks to wear.

Every language is definitely impressive to me, even though I don't understand any of it and likely will never. Tu Tiene Mota is one of like 3 phrases in Spanish that I know and I only learned it because my friend used to work at Wendys with a bunch of Mexican folks that worked there. They always asked him for supplies....

ASL, I know the alphabet (and forget it easily) and a few phrases, some of which I try to use to pick up chicks. (Beautiful, cute)

 

Buddy of mine is 90%+ hearing loss. Has hearing aids but hes getting past the limits of them being useful. He mostly communicates via text or reading lips

 

When i was in Germany, i communicated by pointing at pictures lol i was so lost

 

I ended up making a laminated card with all of these symbols on it for Europe and Japan. Japanese people were surprised that I cared enough to communicate respectfully.
https://iconspeak.world/collections/iconspeak-world/products/travelshirt

 

We had an advisor here a while back who was from Germany.
I think I translated out(badly at that) several phrases that he was always amused by

Punching babies and clubbing seals
and my personal favorite was

"It's the Goddamn Crotch Lobsters"

 

Slowly getting to that point for me too, I think. I have severe hearing loss, I don't recall the %, but let's just say I'm on the bottom of the graph.

I so badly want to be able to communicate via radio with my roomate and friends on wheeling trips. Need someone to hurry up and invent an accurate voice to text digital windshield projector.

Wow, that's useful!