In article ,
Phil L wrote:

How can you hear German but you can't hear French?

Auditory cues are learnt, not innate, and that includes the recognition
of the basic sounds of language. I have been severely deaf almost all
my life, though it was diagnosed very late, and the auditory cues I
use are highly unusual. They are present in northern German, but not
French - I can't distinguish most of the latter's vowels, and a few
(when spoken by most French women) actually come across as silence, no
matter how much I amplify them.

This phenomenon isn't rare, but it is rare for it to be as definite
as it is with me.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.