[LTA music]
Hi, good evening, Aida and Marcel.
It’s a real pleasure to have you here in this little talk, little interview.
This interview will be about a very interesting topic,
not always discussed,
which is: why Hearing Aids are not enough.
Why a person with a hearing loss should use
a Hearing Aid and also use a real-time subtitler
to attend an online meeting, like this one, or a face-to-face meeting,
in order to attend the meeting on an equal basis.
First of all, I’m asking you to present yourself a little bit,
so to introduce you.
Aida?
Ok, I will start, then.
I am Aïda Regel Poulsen. I’m Danish.
I have had my hearing loss since I was 26 years old.
So, I'm living with it growing up, I think.
I am also a teacher of the deaf,
and a speech and hearing therapist for school children.
I’m also working in this field professionally.
Do you want to introduce yourself, Marcel?
Yes. Hello, Piero. Nice to meet you.
I’m Marcel Bobeldijk, and I am from the Netherlands.
I am hard of hearing since my birth.
I wear hearing aids on both ears.
On a volunteer-basis,
I am the President of the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People.
I’m very happy to work together with you and Aida in the LiveTextAccess project.
Yeah, also for me it’s a really nice pleasure
to have you here as EFHOH representatives.
Should we start with the first question?
Ok, so the first question is:
why a person, like you, who uses a Hearing Aid
still should require from their company to hire a real-time subtitler
for attending an online meeting
or a whatsoever meeting, a face-to-face meeting,
or in a normal situation,
in order to attend that meeting on an equal basis.
So why essentially is the Hearing Aid not enough?
Ok, I’d like to start by giving the answer.
Let me start by saying that each Hard of Hearing person is different.
I, and Aida, will give an answer from our personal perspective.
Let me start by giving an example at my work.
When we have face-to-face meeting,
and it is a one-to-one, or there are 2 or 3 people,
I only use my Hearing Aids.
When the group is a little bit bigger,
for example, 6, 8, 9, or 10 people,
I also use a communication set
with 4 mikes on the table.
When the group is bigger than 12 people,
for example at a national meeting that we have at our organization,
we have a meeting with my colleagues
from all over the countries on a central place,
then I have the speech-to-text support.
The speech-to-text interpreter is by me in the room.
Most of the times, the speech-to-text reporter is sitting near me.
I have always, or most of the times, the same speech-to-text interpreter
because my organization agrees
with working with a text-to-speech interpreter.
It is important that in most of the times is the same person,
because that was fine for my colleagues to know the speech-to-text reporter,
and also the speech-to-text reporter to know my work situation,
and the language that we are talking in the meeting,
a lot of difficult words is coming at different times.
This makes the work of the speech-to-text interpreter easier to do.
Before the meeting, I send to the speech-to-text interpreter the agenda
and the minutes of the last meeting.
And also all the documents that we discuss in the meeting.
So that the speech-to-text interpreter before the meeting has the time,
and need to prepare him or herself do the job at the meeting.
At the meeting, we have at my work the rule
that the speech-to-text interpreter says when we have a coffee-break
or the lunch break.
Most of the times after an hour, one and a half hour,
the speech-to-text interpreter asks me:
“Is it ok to have now the lunch break, or the coffee break?”
Sometimes, I say: “Oh, wait 5 or 10 minutes
so that the topic is finished and then we can have the break.”
That has happened in face-to-face work settings.
Now in the Corona-time,
we have a lot of online meetings
and I have Hearing Aids that can stream via Bluetooth
in my iPad and phone and that is different than before,
because my former Hearing Aids did not have the streaming connection
and then it was needed to have the speech-to-text interpreter.
It depends on the possibilities that you have on your Hearing Aids.
And also of the quality of the Hearing Aids.
But also it is related to how heavy the hearing loss is.
I am a very heavy Hard of Hearing person,
so that I need my Hearing Aids in big meetings
and the support of speech-to-text.
Now this is communicated by the sound that I receive on my Hearing Aids,
I see the face of the speakers, so that I can read the lips
and I read the text.
This is kind of multitasking and ladies, as Aida, do that much better than I.
Thank you, Marcel, for your very exhaustive answer.
It was very interesting.
So, Aida, I can tell it is very tiring for you,
as Marcel was saying,
to catch up the lip-reading,
and the speech-to-text interpreter, what he or she says.
The use of Hearing Aids.
It’s very tiring, isn’t it?
Well, yes it is.
And even though you have a hearing loss
and you get some audiological treatment in Hearing Aids or Cochlear Implants,
our hearing is just not so flexible.
In meetings like this, we are 3 participants here,
but the quality of the sound is very different from me to the two of you.
In meetings whit more than 2 people,
I actually appreciate real-time subtitling.
Also because the microphone settings from other participants,
I cannot rely on a good quality from that.
I’m very aware of myself to use a boom microphone,
so that I have the same distance to the microphone all the time.
But not everybody is aware of that.
Voices vary a lot.
My hearing loss is moderate.
Maybe in the high frequencies is going to much severe.
But I also have a discrimination loss, which is something in the brain.
I have twisting words around.
If I mishear something, and I act on that,
I think I have understood.
But then I might in fact have misunderstood it.
So I really appreciate the real-time subtitling
to do my tasks correctly.
I’d like to add also that in work situations,
for planned meetings,
it is no problem to book a speech-to-text interpreter.
But for sudden meetings,
emergency meetings, we cannot have that.
So that could mean that we cannot be in front at the work,
because at the work that is where many emergency meetings are.
So we need to have a better system for this.
Also for my situation,
it would be me booking the speech-to-text interpreter,
it would never be my employer.
That is an extra task, to know when is the meeting, and then to book somebody,
and make sure that I have the same interpreter because,
as Marcel said,
the interpreter would learn the topics of my job
and the technical expressions.
And that is in fact a quality.
Piero, it is good to know that I organize with the speech-to-text interpreter
that I use for my work settings, and work meetings.
In our system here in the Netherlands,
it’s our responsibility to pay the speech-to-text interpreter.
Not my work organization is paying the speech-to-text interpreter,
but I pay the speech-to-text interpreter.
But it’s not about money.
It is the coercion system that employees with hearing loss have in the Netherlands.
Then I have 3 options:
I can use the sign language interpreter,
you can use Dutch with sign interpreter,
or I can use the speech-to-text interpreter.
There is no difference between the 3 groups.
But it’s really up to you?
I mean, in terms of costs and organization.
Yes. And when I go to a meeting
where I prefer to use an interpreter with Dutch and sign,
that is also possible.
But in 99% of the times,
I prefer to use the speech-to-text.
What do you think is the added value
for a speech-to-text interpreter,
instead of this plenty-of-errors subtitles
we are having right now, this automatic subtitles?
The automatic speech recognition that we are using just now
it just doesn't learn throughout an event.
I was just saying to Marcel earlier today that I attended
a Cochlear Implant seminar a couple of weeks ago,
that lasted for 2 hours.
There was some automatic speech recognition in it,
and for 2 hours it never learned to write “Cochlear Implant”,
which was the main topic.
You kind of get frustrated and it is an extra thing
for my brain to have to overcome and make the repairs.
But it is very important that in work settings the quality is high.
Spelling mistakes are not a big problem for me personally,
but for me it is important that the words are correct.
I prefer that the interpreter types exactly the same words that are said,
not making a summary, not writing simple words.
In our work, we talk sometimes with typical words,
and when the interpreter makes an “own” interpretation
and translation in simply words,
that confuses me.
Because I hear something, and I see or I read a different word.
And then my brain says: “Oh, what is happening to you!”
That costs too much energy.
You go out of concentration and then you miss parts of the meeting.
Yeah, of course.
So, it’s really important to have a verbatim interpretation,
instead of a more sensatim one.
Yes, and then it is also important
that the interpreter says:
“That is a difficult topic for me.”
or “I have too limited knowledge about this, the words are too difficult”.
Then, it is better that the interpreter says:
“It is better that you hire another person.”
Because sometimes meetings are in a very academical language.
I think it is also important to know that in Marcel’s system, which is Dutch,
the speech-to-text interpreter will always be prepared for the meeting,
will ask for the agenda, would ask for documents.
I’m Danish, and I’ve not yet succeeded to book an interpreter.
That person would have to be prepared.
Some have asked, but it is not part of their salary
to prepare themselves for the work.
Whereas sign language interpreters in Denmark,
it is part of their salary that they prepare themselves for the work.
But it isn't the same when it is a speech-to-text interpreter.
They just come and hear, and write what they hear.
There is a difference how this things are carried out
throughout the entire world, actually.
Yeah, and here you see the difference between countries
in the northwest of the European Union.
We are not neighbor countries, but we are very close to each other.
so that you can maybe understand that the situation in the map
of the European Union, or in Europe is different.
In Spain, it is different than in Sweden.
Or in Norway, it is also different than in Hungary, or in Romania,
or in Italy.
So it really depends on the country?
Oh yes. And also the automatic speech recognition,
because that does not work for us in Danish.
You’re lucky because in Denmark and also in the Netherlands
you speak very good English.
Thank you.
But a lot of hard of hearing people don't speak [English] very well,
or don't like to speak English.
So they prefer to do it in Danish or in Dutch language.
Then you see the automatic speech systems are not very good at it
in most other languages than in English.
Of course.
So, let's change a little bit of topic.
Talking about the setting of your work station, for example.
What if a real-time subtitler,
or a speech-to-text interpreter is not provided?
What should be the setting of your working station in such cases?
It depends on the type of meeting,
but I have managed, about a year ago, to have a meeting with 3 ladies
and they work in the same company.
I asked them to be each in their room and not to use the same computer
because then the distance to the microphone
would [not be] very much from one to another.
That was the start of the meeting.
I asked them to move apart and this of course took a lot of time.
In that way, sometimes we may appear complicated to work with,
because we are changing routines and we seem to change the agenda.
But I would not have been able to follow what they were saying,
if they hadn’t listen to me then.
Because you were in the same room?
Because they were in the same room.
They were in a different country. Even I was in Denmark.
They were down in Brussels.
That was not about my computer, my settings.
I was telling them how to do their settings.
So, it really takes to chair the meeting in a way,
when in fact they had invited me and they chaired the meeting.
Right.
It is good to say that I prefer
the speech-to-text interpreter with me in the meeting,
in the same room.
I don't like so much working in remote,
because different times that I have do it via remote,
there were some technical problem.
The Internet connection was not good,
or the interpreter was not able to hear everybody in the room.
Back to your question,
what I do when there is no speech-to-text interpreter
and there is a big meeting,
I go sitting in a strategic place.
The place where I can hear well the speakers.
Or I give him the table mike
and then I have an extra reveiver kind of loop.
We call it “loop system”,
so that I can hear the presentation very well.
But then I have the problem that I don’t hear well
the questions from the floor.
Because, for example, if it is a kind of theatre,
so that people are sitting in lines,
you need always to look back over your shoulders
to whom is speaking.
And of course I am sitting in the first line,
so that I can see very well the speaker.
Sometimes people are speaking in a dialect.
The Netherlands is a small country, but some people
from the south or the north is speaking in a dialect.
Then, I cannot hear it.
Then sometimes I ask my collogues: “What is he saying?”
and then sometimes the answer is: “Oh, I could also not hear it.”
So as a hard of hearing person, you need to understand
when you are in a big room,
for example with 15 or 100 people,
that people come out with questions.
Even if you are in the first line, you are not always very aware
of the things that are being said.
So, accent plays a big role in this situation?
And I think maybe that’s why speech-to-text interpreter are important.
So to have the correct words that the person is saying,
without the accent that he or she might have.
Where I have worked, a center for hearing loss in Denmark,
for staff meetings we have had a very good loop system,
with the head of the meeting who was wearing a boom microphone.
And then there would be smaller microphones around the tables,
so that all participants would pick up a microphone and speak in that.
When that works, it is really fine.
And that also showed me that I still have a good auditory memory,
because that is also important,
to be able to use what you have of your hearing left.
That can be done,
but it takes maintaining all these technical stuff.
And you also rely on good acoustics in the room,
and that nothing else is disturbing the sound.
It is vulnerable, but all technology is, I think.
Every part is important, no?
So, everything plays a role?
Yeah, sure.
Everything plays a role and even though people have been using these microphones,
I may ask: “Sorry, what did you say?"
"Could you switch on your microphone?”
That's a special role, once again, that that one person in the meeting
all the time will state: “Oh, you forgot so and so.”
You have like special permission to interrupt all the time
and change the topic in fact, in the meeting,
to “everything about microphones”,
when we are talking about the budget or something.
[LTA music]
LTA. LiveTextAccess.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
SDI - Internationale Hochschule.
Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici.
ZDFDigital.
The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People - EFHOH.
VELOTYPE.
SUB-TI ACCESS.
European Certification and Qualification Association - ECQA.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
Erasmus+ Project:
2018-1-DE01-KA203-004218.
The information and views set on this presentation
are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion
of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any person acting on their behalf
may be held responsible for the use
which may be made of the information contained here.