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Hearing and hearing loss are very often studied from a clinical, and/or technical perspective, and this research has indeed contributed considerable to our understanding of hearing as well as to treatment of hearing loss. Much of this research however is done in the lab, and much of it focuses on speech recognition. One crucial aspect of successful social participation is social interaction, for which speech not only needs to be recognized but also understood. It is this connection that received less attention in hearing research. In this talk, I will discuss how language understanding is affected by hearing loss in adults. I will furthermore show how hearing loss in children may affect their language development and how this affects some aspects of their ability to participate in school. I will end with some perspectives for future research.