Listening, Hearing and Understanding

I confidently strode up to the counter of United Airlines to present my passport and boarding pass for our return flight to the United States from Colombia. “English or Spanish?” asked the sweet young attendant dressed in the deep-blue uniforms of United’s staff. “It’s all the same to me,” I answered, proud to be able to use my Spanish. 

Felipe and Diana, our hosts, tour managers, and friends 

With a broad smile, she claimed that she thought I looked like some famous Colombian actor, whose name I didn’t catch. We continued the process of checking in when suddenly she asked me something that I didn’t understand and asked her to repeat it. I still didn’t understand. She switched to English. How embarrassing, even humiliating, for a 32+ year-pro at teaching Spanish! Truth be told I didn’t understand any better after she repeated it in English. Somehow we got checked in.

This sort of event happened to me over and over again as I went through our nearly two-week itinerary in Bolivia. If the person stood directly in front of me, and I could follow their lips, I understood perfectly. If in a noisy restaurant eating with friends, I could hear and respond to the ones in front of me, but those to the right and at a distance, were mostly mumbles. I often had to pretend that I understood. 

I’ve known for several years that I have been loosing my hearing, but had been too proud to admit it. Esther, my spouse and traveling companion, had made subtitle hints over the years, but several sisters were quite blunt in their assessment of my hearing acuity. I kept putting off looking in to the possibility of hearing aids.

With friends of ours in Colombia (see picture), we had planned for several years for us to come to Colombia to present workshops there on the book I wrote with my sister: “The Spacious Heart: Room for Spiritual Awakening.” I began to wonder, with impaired hearing, how I would be able to respond to questions from the audience in large meeting rooms or churches. So I went to audiologist. The tests he gave me proved beyond a doubt that I had lost significant hearing ability, especially in my right ear. 

I was fitted with some very up-to-date hearing aids, and groaned as the price was rung up on my credit card. Unfortunately, they would not be available until one week after I had returned from Colombia. So off we go, with me only hearing half of the conversation. In spite of a wonderful time, I wonder what all I missed?

The last time we spent significant time in a Spanish-speaking country was in 2015, over eight years ago with a group of EMU students. I had no incidents like I describe above where my ability in Spanish was put into question. 

I have always contended that listening is more important than speaking when learning another language. Now I have to add hearing to listening. Our listening is our focus on the other person in the conversation, our hearing interprets our listening into understanding what the other person said. If our hearing apparatus is impaired, our understanding not only is incomplete, but might even be totally wrong.

After listening, hearing and understanding, we begin to speak. But even our speaking is impaired by our inability to hear well. Whereas my speaking Spanish had always been smooth and fairly unaccented, I discovered that at times I slurred words, couldn’t roll my “r”s smoothly, and spoke in choppy sentences. In my head I could sense what was wrong, but the words came out of my mouth before I could correct them. 

I can only make this claim because of the experience I had using a model of the fitted hearing aids I had purchased. As I spoke, I could hear so much more clearly the sounds that I was making. It was like singing tenor, hearing perfectly well in your head the pitch you are to hit, but failing to make it because of impaired vocal chords. I am confident that when I get my hearing aids, I will not only be able to hear other people better, but will be able to speak more fluently with fewer word slurs. 

I will probably be disappointed since I did not factor in age with my thoughts. My knee replacements were a miracle of science, but they didn’t give me knees of a 30 year old. Esther tells me that I still wobble when I walk.