# Experiencing Speech **Opening (not a real abstract):** Imagine traveling on a bus in a place with an unfamiliar language. Listening to the conversations around you differs dramatically from listening to conversations on a bus back home. Listening to speech in a language you know differs from listening to speech in a language you do not know. Differs how? One kind of difference is cognitive. You understand speech in your own language. Philosophers have devoted tremendous effort to explicating what understanding a language involves and under what conditions somebody understands what is said. What does an individual know in knowing a language? What is it to grasp the meaning of an expression? The answers appeal to things like possessing concepts, mastering grammar, and knowing truth conditions. What about perception? Understanding spoken language also requires hearing; or seeing, as in **Authors:** [[Casey O Callaghan]]