Great suggestions from everyone! It seems to me that the tip about ear pieces on the lobes was posted here a long time ago, jgaga. That trick has worked for me on occasion, too! Like at night you want to look at something out of the corner of your eye rather than directly at it. Listening out of the corner of your ear??? LOLI've learned over the years, with a lot of very difficult ESLs, first of all to get as many samples as I can. When I've had jobs like the one you had, where I'm leaving an inordinate number of blanks, after I have my crying fit of frustration, I leave it alone for a while, listen to something else, and come back and try again. Try listening from the beginning, rather than just going to the blanks. (And like jamo said, listening while reading the edited job is extremely helpful.)
Most of us slow the recording when trying to understand, but in some cases, I've found speeding it up can actually help.
Like Carol said, the more we work on the difficult ones, the easier they become...Absolutely!!!
This is also an area where our education and background come into play. The more we know about what the context should be, the more we have an idea of what it might be, and hopefully we can then make out what they're actually saying! You know what I mean?
HTH, too!
