How do you tackle not being able to understand an accent?

[FindingMeno]

Particularly in settings such as medical ones where its important to understand what is being said?
I am always so worried about appearing rude, especially if I have already said I'm having trouble following what is being said and I then still don't understand.
How is the best way to deal with this? What do you do?

I find an heavy accident and a low mans voice a terrible combination for me. I really find it hard to follow if there is any background noise at all. And hospitals are noisy places. You are very not unreasonable.
And I think London is different. Everyone in London is dealing with loads of accents on a daily basis, especially in a people facing role. I found we alll spoke slower and articulated better at each other, well until someone kicked off about being spoken down too.

Accent or not, I have found that most people, medics included forget within a few seconds that I've said that I am deaf and use hearing aids

Ain't that the truth, @zantez Enter in a wheelchair or with a white cane and many will rush to help, but sadly the hearing impaired are too often made to beg

Despite the inevitable attempts to make this about racism it really doesn't matter where an impenetrable accent's from; if it's just too impossible I stay calm and polite and simply say "I'm sorry, I can't understand your accent" and keep saying it until they find someone else

Sorry, but in a context where communication's key it's incumbent on employers to make sure their staff can do this effectively, and it really shouldn't be the patient's/customer's/whoever else's problem

I find it quite rude and strange when anybody speaks to another person and they don't automatically slow down slightly and try to enunciate more clearly as soon as it becomes apparent that the other person has a different accent to them. (foreign or regional)

I have always done this as I know I have a regional accent (and not even considered particularly strong)

It shows a complete lack of self awareness. I'm sure we've all been in situations where we've politely asked someone to repeat themselves and feel unable to ask a third time for fear of offending or appearing rude when actually they are the one being inconsiderate.

Yes, the only accent I struggled with initially ovwr the phone was Glaswegian. This is not a criticism of that wonderful city, it is just my experience.

“Im hard of hearing, please can you repeat that more slowly”

”im sorry im really struggling to understand with my hearing - is there another staff member who could help to explain nice and slowly for me?”

It’s a huge problem. You’re already vulnerable and then can’t understand the questions or responses. I thought there was a fluency requirement for nhs staff/some frontline roles? I had to sit through a mental health assessment for my sister where the worker had such a strong accent my sister misheard words and was so distressed (police instead of please etc) by it all. Already struggling and then to have to try to adapt and accommodate someone else’s issues.

@Greenwitchart , If someone has less than perfect hearing, they might find some accents difficult.

Also, part of my previous job entailed delivering basic functional English quals to NHS staff and for the odd one or two it was very concerning indeed when you saw which jobs they were meant to be doing with how poor their written language skills and comprehension were.

Don't be a dick to somebody with a disability.

Being D/deaf or hard of hearing/ experiencing hearing loss isnt something to hide. Especially not in a medical situation.

I spent a couple of days in a hospital corridor and I was in a lot of pain and was just by the Covid ward (only two years ago) so the staff were changing aprons a few inches from my bed.

I kept being asked the same questions by various staff. They brought out my regular medication in several journeys. Nobody told me what was happening. The corridor was noisy, I am AuDHD so I was struggling with my sensory issues and feeling disorientated.

I genuinely tried to understand what they were saying but they weren’t speaking clearly and I couldn’t understand most of the accents.

It added to the hideous experience and I won’t be engaging with them again willingly.

I think a few posters may need to take on board what others have touched on here - an inability to follow speech can be incredibly hard for NT people.

I'm autistic and ADHD. I can hear perfectly well in a quiet space, one to one. I struggle to follow voices and speech with background noise of any kind, and following speech with any accent that changes the 'shape' of the word, or the version of it that I'm familiar with, is really, really hard.

And given it was important medically i didn’t want to just smile and nod

Funny that, because I'm understanding the 'nuance' of your posts perfectly well. People are offering plenty of suggestions that you could implement to help yourself in the kinds of situation you're describing, but you keep throwing up reasons why it's unworkable. Why ever might that be? 🙄

Totally agree - I mentioned it in my post above. I even kept telling people I was ND!

Yup tried that. Didn’t work

I work with students and find some of the hardest accents to understand are those who speak English as a first language (often as one of several “first languages”) but not UK English (HK “chinglish”, some Nigerians and Gambians, some Indians, etc.) The ones I struggle to understand speak English very fast (unlike “non-native” speakers who may have strong accents but tend to go more slowly) and with an unusual (to me) sentence pattern/grammar which can make it hard to work out individual words. I usually say I’m having trouble understanding and would they mind slowing down a bit but because I have a fairly posh/RP British English accent I am always worried I will sound either patronising or racist or both.

Good for you. It’s not the same experience for everyone though. I’m currently refusing to engage with some of the medical staff I deal with in case it happens again

Having been to uni in Glasgow, it is one of the regional UK accents I find easiest to understand. I can't follow my own teenagers half the time, with their SE accents.

I work in a global role and there are some colleagues whose accents I really struggle with. It is not a case of racism, my brain simply cannot interpret what they are saying sometimes. It is made harder when on a call with multiple nationalities and varying levels of English. I cannot switch quickly between them all. It has got worse since I reached 50, so I don't know if it is a hearing loss thing, a processing thing, a perimenopause thing, or what.

I’ve just been in England recently for private surgery and I’m Irish and wear hearing aids so I know exactly where you are coming from OP. I also had a hard time when we were all wearing facemasks during Covid! I just ask them to repeat what they said and tell them I wear hearing aids and there’s no problem.

Many English people couldn’t understand my dads strong Tipperary accent including my dh
They'd just say so and he’d talk slower
It didn’t upset him
Not everyone has an ear for accents. It’s not something I’ve come across maybe because my ear has acclimatised to it.

I wouldn’t worry OP just be open and honest and ask for clarification

Because someone's champing at the bit (in less than 8 minutes since your post) to call "RACISM!!! RACISM!!!!" and thus go to bed tonight feeling smug, virtuous and superior.

I’m a student nurse and spend a lot of time translating accents for the patients, when somebody has a strong accent , and is using unfamiliar terms , and is often wearing a face mask , it’s really difficult ! Ask for a nurse ti be present for the appt then ask them to explain it ri you afterwards ,( they often have more time) tell them you have a hearing problem and use that as an excuse , please don’t miss out on important medical information through embarrassment .

If you have a hearing impairment then you have the right to ask for communication support. If you lipread, you could ask for a lipspeaker to be booked for your appointments - they are professional interpreters who have been trained to lipspeaker clearly so you can lipread them (some will also use sign language or sse (sign supported English) if required). All medical settings can and have to provide this if required (but be aware it may delay your appointment due to having to book an interpreter). The interpreter may be there in person or in a video call.

The other option, if it's more of a milder-moderate hearing loss is to use live transcribe on your phone. It's not perfect but it can work quite well. Also means you don't have another stranger in an appointment that can be difficult enough as it is. Just explain you have a hearing loss and you use live transcribe to give you captions to help you understand what is being said.

It's all very well people saying that you should just be able to manage but with hearing loss, even just a mild one, understanding people that you don't know is much harder. Understanding someone with an accent - that is any accent (whether one of the many UK accents or foreign accents) is even harder because you have to learn how the accent affects the way words are said. If it's a foreign accent, even if its someone who has a good command of their 2nd+ language, there can sometimes be word or phrase differences as well and this adds an added difficulty.

I'm profoundly deaf and have a cochlear implant. If it's (for example) a doctor I don't know, I explain that I am deaf, that I can't always understand/lipread someone I don't know due to clarity, accent, frequency or even loudness of voice and request an interpreter. At my GP surgery, I request one particular GP because I know I can lipread her and this helps avoid having to go through the process of getting an interpreter booked.

The point is, you have a right to be able to understand the medical professional you are speaking to and if you need support due to hearing loss, you are eligible.

It's very difficult. I have a lot of medical issues and it's very stressful going to an important appointment worrying about whether you will understand the doctor's accent. You don't want to be rude but asking someone to repeat more than once feels rude so you give up.

I worked with the public all my life and have always struggled with accents, particularly Glasgow. Now I'm older and have hearing loss on top. My hearing aids do mean I can hear well enough face to face but telephone appointments are a nightmare. They connect with Bluetooth but it's still slightly harder than FTF.

Is it racist to say that overseas doctors who have poor spoken English are common?
I recently had a vaccination at a pharmacy. The pharmacist was East European, she obviously understood English and she clearly thought she was speaking it but I genuinely couldn't make out a word she was saying.

There will be a setting on your phone that you can turn on. It will then listen to whats being said and caption it for you.

should make things easier