i hate when peeps do this to me....

Dixie said:
I apologize - you are right being nice can go a long way. But at the same time it grows more and more irritating the more it happens.

Like you I get the "Oh you speak so well" comment from people when I tell them I am deaf/hoh. Then the conversation is launched into my speech skills rather than the original conversation was to be about.

But still if I were done the same way as 50x - I would be incredibly annoyed, especially now since I dont know a whole lot of sign.

Does this mean Im oralist? Absolutely not, Im just saying this particular situation for me would be incredibly awkward to be sitting there conversing with my friends then somone comes over whom we dont know and starts immediately signing.

I guess the best reaction would be to stop them mid-sign and explain to them that you can speak, and do not know sign that well because you grew up orally.

I apologize if I have offended anyone, but perhaps I don't always have the best reaction to strange situations.
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Hey, dont apologize..u are not the only one. My brother is a complete ass to hearing people who just learned sign and come up to him interrupting his conversations with his friends just to show off their signs. He really gets mean wtih them and I have to yell at him to tell them politely that it was rude of them to interrupt him and his friends like that. I have been rude to some hearing people who ask me questions about deafness and sign language a few times myself. Oh well, we are not perfect but I really dont want to be mean lkike my brother is cuz that may give hearing people the wrong impression of all deaf people, ya know?
 
Dixie said:
Like you I get the "Oh you speak so well" comment from people when I tell them I am deaf/hoh. Then the conversation is launched into my speech skills rather than the original conversation was to be about..
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Yes, that can happened because it's very interesting to them or it's a shocking to them that a deaf person can really speak so well.

They would even said that to me too, I would say "Aww Thanks!!" *Blush*

I feel very flatter that I can speak well, and that they can understood me with no conflicts. It does make me more prouder of myself. ;)
 
understood 100% Shel.

I admit I do have my days where things seem to get to me more easily than others even though I know I shouldnt allow that to happen.

I dont want to be seen as an ass but at the same time its hard to not be an ass sometimes when you encounter the same situation repeatedly thats annoying. Like having a puppy underfoot all the time. Sure the pup means well but doesnt know any better. The only way to stop the situation is to teach the pup to stop getting underfoot all the time, but in a nice way or the pup learns to be afraid of you.

Maybe if there were less deaf people being asses to hearing people maybe that particular hearing person can go back to his hearing friends and say 'hey this deaf person told me its rude to interupt their conversation to show off signs, it is like interupting spoken conversation between two other people to show off your speech." Then they are like OK cool - we wont do that then eventually more and more deafs and hearies are able to make nicer introductions to each other. And hearies wont be so afraid of deafies.
 
Dixie said:
also adding that I am all for bi-lingual approach, but it irritates me when someone comes up to a person wearing hearing aids and either starts signing right off the bat or starts yelling.

I know the person was only trying to be nice - and it falls into the "meant well but lack direction" catagory.

For me having grown up in a mainstream world - this is like me and a friend eating at Subway then a stranger neither of us knows comes up and starts talking to us - it just feels incredibly awkward.
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I agree. It's not the sign language that's the problem but the assumptions that people make about your communication choices and the fact that because you're a "special" object in their eyes they feel they have the right to just walk up to you and butt in.

The polite thing to ask is "do you sign?" and then take it from there.
 
Dixie said:
actually I am learning ASL via the internet on lifeprint.com, so I have absolutely no objection to learning ASL.
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Have you found this a good way to improve on your sign?
 
jclarke said:
Maybe you could start learning sign language, that might add to your experience, and make more friends than you can expect? Just an suggestion :)
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Good advice. However, this pertains to making a wider circle of deaf friends, which is a different issue, rather than dealing with obnoxious hearing people who think they know you before they know you! Deaf people are quite diverse - some sign, others do not.

What would you do for example if someone came up to you and insisted on speaking to you, even though you informed them your primary language was sign? That's rude, isn't it?
 
Dixie said:
also adding that I am all for bi-lingual approach, but it irritates me when someone comes up to a person wearing hearing aids and either starts signing right off the bat or starts yelling.

I know the person was only trying to be nice - and it falls into the "meant well but lack direction" catagory.

For me having grown up in a mainstream world - this is like me and a friend eating at Subway then a stranger neither of us knows comes up and starts talking to us - it just feels incredibly awkward.
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R2D2 said:
Good advice. However, this pertains to making a wider circle of deaf friends, which is a different issue, rather than dealing with obnoxious hearing people who think they know you before they know you! Deaf people are quite diverse - some sign, others do not.

What would you do for example if someone came up to you and insisted on speaking to you, even though you informed them your primary language was sign? That's rude, isn't it?
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Yep, it is. Everyone have their own different views on these opinions... I find some times have to tell my co-workers that i am deaf, but surprisingly a young woman was talking to me when I was at work, and I had to tell her that I am deaf, but she didn't back away, she went to a paper and wrote what she wanted - I replied politely. :D
 
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I understand totally how you feel. It sucks. Sometimes I have customers at my job sign thank you. I say thank you verbally and everything verbally. I have told a few that I don't sign, but I feel that to some I have to let go. I have had a few people ask if I sign without signing first to me. I think what Dixie said was funny about signing nonsense back. lol. I had a woman come up to me and ask if I was interested in teaching her signs. I said that I didn't know, and that I was oral.

I just think it's weird that people have to run and sign to someone who has a hearing aid or something. Grrr!

I have seen people with Cochlear Implants or even one person who seemed to have had a scar and shave like they had a cochlear implant surgery. I didn't do nothing like run to them and ask them personal stuff. Only one time I had a lady ask if I had a cochlear implant ( I had my hair up) because she showed me her recent scar, and said she was excited.

At work, I don't wear my hair up too often for this reason of some ignorant people looking at it and assuming crap about you. Most people assume I have an accent and ask where I am from lol.
 
At work sometimes people leave carts abandoned all over the store with crap in it. Well, I took one abandoned and put it away with a blouse,too. A few minutes later, this woman comes talking fast and down that I couldn't understand a thing she said. I said that I don't understand. I said that she needed to repeat herself. She said, okay, and went to someone else. I looked to see what she'd say, and I figured out that she was looking for the blouse lol. She said she went to the bathroom. I didn't say nothing about it. I pretended I didn't know because she wouldn't help me by repeating herself. All she needed to do was slow down, and I would have understood her. The lady she talked to said, awww, and she didn't know. lol lalalalalala
 
yeah I have few friends that went to oral school they never really signed til after h.s I was like okay... but doesn't bother me cuz we are human beings but to hearing people they still don't understand :roll: oh well.. don't let them get on your nerves :)
 
I am curious...to those who dont know sign language..if people respond to u in sign language (without the butting in your conversations which I find very rude) does that offend you all? I am the total opposite..I am just grateful if hearing people know sign language cuz to me that means they understand that sign language is widely used by deaf/hoh people. The more people that can sign, the easier my life is! :giggle:
 
next time someone does that to me awkwardly or just come up to me randomly and start doing language. i'll just act sad and feeling remorseful and say "omg, she's really retarded!!! :(" and tell her that "do you see dead people??"
:rofl:
 
ClearSky said:
At work sometimes people leave carts abandoned all over the store with crap in it. Well, I took one abandoned and put it away with a blouse,too. A few minutes later, this woman comes talking fast and down that I couldn't understand a thing she said. I said that I don't understand. I said that she needed to repeat herself. She said, okay, and went to someone else. I looked to see what she'd say, and I figured out that she was looking for the blouse lol. She said she went to the bathroom. I didn't say nothing about it. I pretended I didn't know because she wouldn't help me by repeating herself. All she needed to do was slow down, and I would have understood her. The lady she talked to said, awww, and she didn't know. lol lalalalalala
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The lady should just draw a breath and talk slowly or write on a piece of paper - that's simple!
 
jclarke said:
The lady should just draw a breath and talk slowly or write on a piece of paper - that's simple!
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At the rate she was talking and not looking at me, I don't think any deaf person would have understood. It's one of those times where people come up to you and say something blajojfojfdignjong all the way, and you go like, "what?" I think she was somewhat embarrassed having talked much lol, but I was waiting to see if I could get any word out of her babbling to put it together. Sometimes, I understand a hearing person, and the hearing co-workers don't understand a thing lol. So weird. Most people are nice enough to repeat themselves.
 
shel90 said:
I am curious...to those who dont know sign language..if people respond to u in sign language (without the butting in your conversations which I find very rude) does that offend you all? I am the total opposite..I am just grateful if hearing people know sign language cuz to me that means they understand that sign language is widely used by deaf/hoh people. The more people that can sign, the easier my life is! :giggle:
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I appreciate that you feel that way. However, I just think that rather than stereotype all deaf people as being fluent in sign language (which the majority aren't) such people can simply sign and say "do you sign?" I've had people do that for me and I find this an appropriate way to introduce themselves. However, if someone launches right in, signing rapidly away then the assumption has already been made.

I am bi racial and I would find it similarly offensive if someone jived up to me speaking in West Indian patois just because my father was West Indian. I can't understand it and an assumption has been made. I'm sure though that some West Indians who miss the patois would feel grateful in Australia if someone came up to them and started talking in the language they are familiar with! :D
 
I'm sure that this has happened to a deaf person at least once within their lifetime.

It has happened to me a lot.

It's not just deaf people, but hearing people as well. For deaf people, they just have to jump into a conversation with you. I'll be at a restaurant with my hearing friends and I'm talking orally to them. Suddenly, this deaf person walks up to me and signs... "Hi, I'm deaf. I notice you're deaf. How are you?" Of course, they abruptly interrupted my conversation with my hearing friend and didn't even apologize for doing so. As for hearing people, if I'm signing with my deaf friends... a hearing person who knows sign language will walk up and sign... "Hi, are you deaf? I'm hearing, but I know sign language. Look at me sign!" Boy, it's embarrassing both ways. Ugh!
 
50x7_Z said:
ya, but i could never find the time to do so. they have ASL classes in my university, but with the major that i am doing, Biology, i couldn't fit that class into it. its too late for that. i have to complete all the required science electives.

but i have deaf friends in india since childhood. (i'll post a thread about it, really amazing success i had)
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Don't you have to complete a foreign language requirement for college? You could use ASL for that.
 
"Hi, are you deaf? I'm hearing, but I know sign language. Look at me sign!"

lol "look at me sign?!"

I think a lot of them just probably wanna show off some skills.
 
lifeprint and ASL web help some but I wish I had enough updates available on my comp that I can use ASL Web for major phrases and a more complete ASL Dictionary.

As for someone that notices that I am hoh/deaf and politely comes into the conversation and starts signing - I wouldnt be offended because they were polite and had common sense not to just rush up to me and start signing at me.

At work we have mixed bag of people - we have those that speak English only, those that Speak spanish only, those that speak both fluently and those that are just learning the other language and want to show off their skills. Like the other day this one Hispanic girl heard me say a simple phrase in Spanish to another girl and she just zips away and starts babbling at me in Spanish and I am like WHOA WHOA!!! I know little spanish, I am not entirely fluent! When I said that I got something of a dirty look. I think she took it that I knew Spanish fluently. I think she wanted to be cool with me and wanted to be friends but went about it the wrong way and kinda threw me off. She hasnt spoken to me since.

And there are times I'll see another person, especially a white person whos just learning the Spanish language go up to a group of the hispanics and start speaking very broken elementary spanish to them like "look at me I can speak spanish, I know what your saying' type thing. It really throws the hispanics off.

Im not saying we shouldnt communicate because of language preferances, but if you want to make an introduction, you need to do it in a nice manner and state that your just learning the language and would like to learn more on a conversational level. Or you could politely ask what is your communication preferance??
 
Dixie said:
lifeprint and ASL web help some but I wish I had enough updates available on my comp that I can use ASL Web for major phrases and a more complete ASL Dictionary.

As for someone that notices that I am hoh/deaf and politely comes into the conversation and starts signing - I wouldnt be offended because they were polite and had common sense not to just rush up to me and start signing at me.

At work we have mixed bag of people - we have those that speak English only, those that Speak spanish only, those that speak both fluently and those that are just learning the other language and want to show off their skills. Like the other day this one Hispanic girl heard me say a simple phrase in Spanish to another girl and she just zips away and starts babbling at me in Spanish and I am like WHOA WHOA!!! I know little spanish, I am not entirely fluent! When I said that I got something of a dirty look. I think she took it that I knew Spanish fluently. I think she wanted to be cool with me and wanted to be friends but went about it the wrong way and kinda threw me off. She hasnt spoken to me since.

And there are times I'll see another person, especially a white person whos just learning the Spanish language go up to a group of the hispanics and start speaking very broken elementary spanish to them like "look at me I can speak spanish, I know what your saying' type thing. It really throws the hispanics off.

Im not saying we shouldnt communicate because of language preferances, but if you want to make an introduction, you need to do it in a nice manner and state that your just learning the language and would like to learn more on a conversational level. Or you could politely ask what is your communication preferance??
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:gpost:
 
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