I tend to have trouble with verbal instructions, including over the fone, and try to write it down. I then have to have the speaker repeat stuff I missed, so I can be sure I wrote it down correctly. I had trouble in school, as I am not a fast writer, and the teachers were not in the habit of repeating stuff. They would just keep going with their spiel, and I did what I could to keep up, but it was never enough.
If someone speaks with a heavy accent, especially over the fone, I really have a lot of trouble understanding them.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.--Henry David Thoreau