My grandfather was on the ferry from Norway to Denmark with my sister. We're all from Norway. He had quite reduced hearing and used a hearing aid.
They were having dinner at the ships restaurant, and the waiter asked my grandfather something. My grandfather just didn't understand the guy and asked the waiter to repeat several times. After the 4th time, my sister told my grandfather: "Grandpa, he's Swedish". My grandpa paused for a second and then immediately recognized what the waiter had said.
Turns out he had assumed the guy was Danish, and thus failed to interpret the limited sounds he could hear, given the hearing loss and background noise.
I'm half-deaf with a cochlear implant; context switching is incredibly difficult! I've had similar problems where I assume someone is speaking either Japanese or English and "filter" accordingly.
It's also cool that your sister was able to assess what the problem was with nothing more than observation, and then cause your grandpa to switch to a more effective processing model with a simple utterance.
They were having dinner at the ships restaurant, and the waiter asked my grandfather something. My grandfather just didn't understand the guy and asked the waiter to repeat several times. After the 4th time, my sister told my grandfather: "Grandpa, he's Swedish". My grandpa paused for a second and then immediately recognized what the waiter had said.
Turns out he had assumed the guy was Danish, and thus failed to interpret the limited sounds he could hear, given the hearing loss and background noise.