I don't read lips

[KellyHabersham]

*I know I've griped about this before on here, and it's not a major issue, but it happened tonight and it bugs me when my mom does it*

Dear Mom - I understand that there are times when you might need to talk quietly or whisper, but PLEASE DO NOT mouth words at me! You know that I don't read lips, but you do it anyhow and then get frustrated because I can't understand you.

[anakhouri]

I can't STAND it when people do this! I can never figure it out either and it turns into several minutes of me shrugging anf saying, "What?!" before they finally get a clue and actually come talk to me.

[siead_lietrathua]

ugh yes. have to deal with this with coworkers constantly.
i admit, i can read lips enough to get maybe 1 in every few words... but it usually just ends up that they're talking smack about someone anyway, so it's not worth trying.
i like telling them, in a slightly louder-than-normal voice "I Can't Read Lips!"
they usually get all flustered and brush it off with a "nevermind" or "later then" cuz they don't wanna get busted being rude infront of the customers.

[BrenDAnn]

Oddly, the people I see do this most often ARE my customers. They'll come in, phone glued to their ear, yapping away, and try to mouth what kind of cigarettes or whatever they want to me. I just blink, stare at them, and wait for them to actually say it out loud. As the thread title says... I don't read lips!

[dentarthurdent]

Oddly, the people I see do this most often ARE my customers. They'll come in, phone glued to their ear, yapping away, and try to mouth what kind of cigarettes or whatever they want to me. I just blink, stare at them, and wait for them to actually say it out loud. As the thread title says... I don't read lips!

I tend to pretty much ignore a customer on a cell phone until they hang up. If they insist on taking up space in front of my work station, I won't actively call other customers to skip them in line, but the temptation is there.

[Ginger Tea]

Not lip reading but kinda related.

virtually every time I would begrudgingly hang out with Captain Dickhead in a quieter venue, he would be more or less quiet, its annoying when a conversation seems more like a lecture as I start talking about random crap pulling facts out of my arse just to entertain myself.

Yet once in a night club environment, that's when he wants to ask the most mundane questions or ask about stuff that could have been asked prior (rarely was it something to do with the here and now) and all I can do is go to his ear and yell (not maliciously)
"Wha?" and his reply would be inaudiable due to the music "Speak up I cant hear you over the music!"

in 2004/05 I took an evening class on British Sign Language whilst he was taking French (if his class was on another day I would not have kept in contact with him after another course where we met but that's another story) close to the end of the year we had met a few times outside of class, normally the day of and he had expressed a mild interest in BSL and after having a look at one of my earlier hand outs with a phrase to sign he started to practice on me, even though I was not looking at him and was either reading my current home work or just drifting my eyes around the pub.

Sign language 101, make sure you have the other persons attention and they are looking at you before you start, what I saw from the corner of my eye could have been dismissed as him practicing a sign or three, it was only when he asked me what he signed that I had to explain to him (he's not the sharpest) that if I am not looking at him I am not 'listening' to him.

Sadly we had this conversation more times than I cared to count.

[Seshat]

I hear you (heh) on sign language 101!

I 'speak' some Auslan - and yeah, it's vital to have the other person's visual attention.

[Ginger Tea]

When he was a driver for my old company, he stopped off for lunch in one of the larger drops cafeteria and someone was signing to some one else the other side of the room and he got it in his head to try and strike up a conversation with that person god knows how many metres away, needless to say they didn't notice him and I have no idea if anyone else noticed a guy sat by himself signing to no one in particular.

If you have a good line of sight and are both ready to communicate you can have a conversation over a distance, but you both need to be aware that you are actually in a conversation to begin with.

I didn't continue my studies in BSL as it was the year my mother passed away and although I finished the year off I knew I would fail the exam but took it any way just so I wouldn't have the doubt nagging at me, I remember very little as I had less cause to use it outside of class, so if I re enrol I will not have any greater head start than I had after taking the short course to see if it was for me.

Although sign languages differ as much as vocal ones, ASL is based of French for example, I did notice a few signs matched grammatically to BSL in the original Bangkok Dangerous.