Lip reading and Russian

[Kenneth E Udut]

I was watching a Russian movie on NTV+ today,
with the sound off for a few minutes, and it suddenly
dawned on me that I had an easier time understanding
when I was reading their lips!

I'm partially deaf (profoundly deaf in one ear, and
bad hearing in the other), although I've had some
very good sucess with language records and tapes,
[and I realize that my capacity for language learning,
especially w/a language with a very wide frequency
range like Russian, will always be limited]

I learned naturally to read lips at a young age,
but never, ever did it dawn on me to try to do
this with Russian learning until it spontaneously
was 'noticed' a few minutes ago.

My question: Are there any resources
on lip reading and language learning?

The best combination for me when watching TV
is closed caption, hearing it, and reading lips -
althoug I do it unconsciously most of the time -
but alas, NTV and NTV+ on the DISH network
doesn't seem to have closed captioning.

A lot of information is carried by the movement
of the mouth - the movement of the teeth,
the various shapes the lips make, the inhaling
or exhaling of breath, the little peeking at the
tongue once in a while when one is talking --
and the combination (for me) of the lip reading
and hearing seems quite powerful at first blush.

I'd be especially interested in resources w/Russian
and lipreading, but if not, perhaps a general explanation
of the phenomon that might be available online or
in a book somewhere.

Any help appreciated!

-Kenneth
simplify3 at juno.com, kenneth.udut at spcorp.com

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