Progress Report: The First Audiobook

I was never able to effortlessly listen to recorded speech with just any voice. When I was younger, I was able to hear some if the speech was very clear, and unobstructed by any noise.

Knowing that people with cochlear implants can have good success with speech comprehension, I looked for something free on iTunes, and found a podcast of the Wizard of Oz. Before the implant, I tried to listen to the first chapter, The Cyclone. I got an occasional sentence, but generally did not follow it much at all, getting only a vague sketch of what was happening. I got that Kansas was gray. There was a cyclone. Dorothy was in the house being carried by the cyclone. Then she landed? Fell asleep? Was she already talking to the Munchkins? What's happening? Will the wizard give me an ear?

After the implant, I tried it again. Incoherent. Forget it. I couldn't hear it. I heard maybe three of the sentences that I heard before the surgery. Still, I kept listening to it, going back and trying again and again. I was hearing more and more of it each time. It was like a puzzle, piecing together the sentences word by word, gleaned by repetition. Then one night, it started to spill through. I was hearing the majority of it, but still missing some chunks of the story here and there.

To help with filling out the missing chunks of the story, I decided to transcribe it, which also increased the rigor of this exercise. I heard the entire chapter dozens of times as I read along the transcript, trying to fill out missing sections. Finally, three days later, I had a 98% transcribed chapter. The last few stubborn words held out on me, but hopefully someday I'll get them.

"The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of the cyclone, the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher until it was at the very top of the cyclone, and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away, as easily as you could carry a feather."

All that work on The Cyclone chapter swirled around my auditory cortex and raised its comprehension levels higher and higher. As I started on chapter two, The Council With The Munchkins, I found I was hearing the words much faster than I could type them. I stopped typing and kept listening. There is no transcript of chapter two. I listened to it twice and got the story. Dorothy's house landed in Oz, killing an evil witch, and Dorothy met all sorts of interesting beings, then set upon her way to Oz on the road with yellow bricks to try to get back home.

The next few nights, I made it through the next few chapters on the first try. I wasn't getting 100%. I would miss an occasional word or phrase. Sometimes I'd miss a sentence or two. But I heard enough to know what was going on with no doubt. I'm now on Chapter 14, and there are 24 chapters. Soon, I will finish my first ever audiobook.