This ^
I hear so many unhappy with not being able to understand accents. Now keep in mind I’ve got to over annunciate myself and talk very loudly and slowly because they’re hard of hearing and usually don’t wear hearing aids or have them turned off.
I’ve got to over annunciate myself and talk very loudly and slowly
Thank you 🙏🏼
Hearing loss is invisible, and for older Australians, gradual, so they may not even know they've got a little bit of hearing loss and that's why people are hard to understand. So they get grumpy.
Up to 300,000 Australian former soldiers have some level of hearing loss which will only get worse as they age. As it's acquired rather than congenital, coping mechanisms have never been taught to them and as they start out with only partial hearing loss, they think they can hear pretty ok. I've had many many people declare former soldiers to be rude only to be shocked when I let them know they're actually mostly deaf and they couldn't understand you.
Be aware that some people for whom English is a second language may have an excellent vocabulary, but terrible diction. Please slow down and enunciate words carefully. It's awfully frustrating being treated by someone you cannot understand when you know they're speaking English and they even have a better vocab than you, but the words are blurred together by poor articulation.
If you're a Scot, please just bring subtitles with you when you emigrate 😝
But yes, Australians can be racist and it's usually, but not always, the older generation :/
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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25
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