I wanted to ask any real-world transcriptionists if they come across difficult accents very often. I'm in the final course of At-home professions and in the practice reports and exams, there have CONSTANTLY been ridiculously unintelligible foreign accents to transcribe. I think there was once 7 reports in a row which were dictated by mutterers and stammerers. I feel like after a point, it has become such a waste of time! Not to mention discouraging! I think I could have been done by now if I hadn't had to deal with so much replaying and replaying of things that don't sound like they could possibly be English. Is it really necessary? The other day I was struggling with my old enemy, Ryo Miyamoto, who talks like he has the laziest or heaviest tongue, stiff tongue, as he listed off 10 or more medications. I'm not sure exactly how many there were because I decided to skip past that part after wasting 20 minutes trying to figure out WHAT he was saying. I get so angry at him and think about how stupid he is while listening to him.

AshLar --

Yes,it's really necessary. Well over half the dictators I have listened to every day for the last 40 years have had foreign accents -- some more difficult than others, of course. Of each year's group of housestaff (perhaps 80 dictators), about a dozen are really difficult. Of the native English speakers, there are usually two or three who whisper, slur words together, eat, dictate in noisy areas, etc., etc. If you want to pursue this career, you're going to have to get used to it.

Try to remember that the ESLs in particular are not TRYING to be difficult -- most of them know they are hard to understand and do the best they can. In time, you may find that your ESL dictators get easier, because they tend to say the same things in the same way in all their reports, and, because you have to struggle so with them, you tend to remember them better.

happy thursday, and good luck with your course.
carol

I really like this reply, esp that the ESL docs don't TRY to be difficult and are doing the best they can. Also the part about how dictators repeat things and once you get past that you'll be having a much easier time of it. My first client was from El Salvador S.A. and was so hard to understand I had to laugh sometimes. What a funny situation. But after a few months of trying to get her, it became quite easy for me to do so. That situation has served me well in subsequent years, cuz I learned how to listen for certain things in ESL dictators.

I have come across difficult foreign accents. Some I can easily handle, but some need extra work. ----One way to handle a tough file is to block in as much as you can of the entire report, putting ---- or ____(05:46.2) to indicate problem areas, then go away for a few minutes. Return w/fresh ears and re-listen to each blank, and this MAY fill in some. ---Many words/expressions can be figured out because they're used more than once, so you may see it w/ the whole text in front of you, further down. Some blanks will be filled in this way. --------To fill in remaining blanks, adjust the playback option in the program you're using (ExpressScribe, Media Player, etc) to high bass, sharp bass, no bass; experiment w/ different playback settings until the voice pops out at you better. (Don't forget to rest your ears every 40 min or so.)----Drugs.com has a "Phonetic search" where you type what you hear of the drug as best you can. (Hasn't worked so well for me, but it may for you.) ----I have GOOGLED phrases and terms and got many, MANY answers that way, even after entering phonetic mis-spellings and nonsensical phrases. I can tell if I'm on the right track or not by what comes up on the search/menu page.
-----Well, that's all I've got. I'd LOVE/NEED to learn more ways to research, to decipher, etc, so please post your ideas for me/the rest of us!

I'm feeling incredibly frustrated right now. I thought that some of the AHP doctors were occasionally hard to understand, but most of the time they were fairly clear. Right now I'm attempting a preliminary test for a company I'm considering applying to, and it's harder than anything I ever had to do for AHP. Yeah, it's even harder than the dreaded Quiz 30. It seems like the doctors on this recording are competing in a race to see who can dictate their reports the fastest. Slowing the track down doesn't even help, because it's JUST as mushy at half speed. XD