Three Weeks in France

Bart: So basically, I met one good French person.
(The Simpsons, S01E07 The Crepes of Wrath)

Previously, my only experience with France was a one day trip to Strasbourg to visit one of the capitals of the European Union. The European Union, trademarked as indecisive, decided to split the capital between Brussels and Strasbourg, costing millions of euros a year for taxpayers. Conveniently, this made one of the capitals close enough to where I was studying to warrant the teacher to have our whole class spend the day on a bus. This is the only thing I remembered from the trip, other than that I fell asleep in the front row of a presentation and woke up to a German politician taking questions from our class. My stay in the city for the day was pleasant, everyone was very friendly, despite my comprehensive knowledge of the French language being "Merci", "Je suis la jeune fille", and "Omelette du fromage".

A three day stay in Paris and the rest of the time in Tours has been more encompassing. By no means am I an expert in French culture, but to get an idea of a country you have to immerse yourself in it for a while. Endlessly entertaining are those that tell you how culturally enriching their seven day trip to London, Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, Pompeii, and Barcelona was. That is not to say, three weeks is not a very long time either. As I mentioned before, my lackluster knowledge of the language and culture makes me think everyone is always talking about cheese, because it stands out as one of the words I know. In all fairness here is all I know about French history:

• German and French people are terrified that one of them is gonna swim across the Rhine and kill the other.

Some drunk dude in a bar writes a song that becomes the national anthem.

Napoleon swims across the Rhine and there's a party under the Brandenburger Tor.

Napoleon sits in the snow outside of Moscow and then someone puts him on an island.

A bunch of people break into the Bastille and set free all the political prisoners and prisoners.

France sends troops and the Statue of Liberty to America, meanwhile Thomas Jefferson chats up some 'demoiselles. Five years later Americans forget either event happened, or that our politicians use to speak more than one language.

Germans swim across the Rhine and kill a bunch of French people. 

Germans swim across the Rhine again and kill a bunch of French people and Jews, then they take pictures at the Eiffel Tower. 

Tom Hanks leads a small group of American soldiers through war torn Europe in search of Matt Damon, along the way single handly winning the war in a decisive battle in some small European town or something.

The first McDonald's opens in France.

French people publicly mock fast food, while privately soliciting McDonald's three times a week.

France elects a socialist president. A French political science major in my political science class mistakenly admits that she does not know who which party the president of France belongs to. Americans who have never left the country complaining about Socialist France are accidentally a little bit correct.

As you can see, I am not well versed in the subject. Born in the 90's, growing up we were told that the French were snooty cowards that hated Americans, specifically after the invasion of Afghanistan. In high school, the well off children at the Catholic school I attended would complain about how rude the French people were. Between these off hand remarks, and Fox news telling us how we needed to boycott French cheese and wine, one would get the impression that it is not a nice place to go to.

Fortunately, I have been staying with my girlfriend, who besides speaking French nearly fluently, has also lived here for some time as a teacher. The very first observation one will make is that there is an understandably very different reaction to speaking French and yelling in English. In line at a Christmas market vendor, the body language of the workers was photogenic in the worst way possible when an eastern European man tried yelling an order in English. We were right after, and as my girlfriend told the man what she wanted in French, the laborer handed her the order and said "C'est pour la Madamoiselle". And once again, that has been my experience for the most part, nice helpful people.

On the other hand my girlfriend's outlook is comparable to Bart's. She has had to deal with mountains of paperwork, finding an apartment, and working in the school system here. One of the problems with getting out of the U.S (or anywhere) is that you're an outsider, and if you don't speak the language fluently (learned it before age seven) the other fluent speakers know almost immediately. My favorite story of hers was when she asked her French friend what he didn't like about America and he said "Your religion, your president (Bush), and McDonald's". And when she retorted "doesn't your roommate eat there"? He replied "Yeah, he goes there every Sunday"!

This is sort of something that rings dissonant. I have heard Europeans state that they go great lengths to make sure that restaurants like McDonald's stay away from their monuments, and do not exist every five kilometers like in the U.S. ; this simply is not true: 

Martins Tor in the very center of Freiburg Germany.
Note the McDonald's restaurant underneath. Some
children refer to it as the McDonald's Tor.

McDonald's at Berlin Alexanderplatz

McDonald's at the center of Tours France

In all fairness of the last two pictures, one is in a train station and the other one is near a train station. A quick place to grab a quick bite to eat. What I cannot deny is the frequency at which I see these restaurants in European countries. Freiburg, which touts itself as being a green, student city has two McDonald's, three Starbucks, and a Burger King in the city center. I have also known the same amount of Americans and Europeans that have worked at McDonald's (two each). The truth is that there are some things people ubiquitously love. As unhealthy and greasy as it is, who is going to truthfully state there's nothing at McDonald's they don't like? I can also state from being from a Springfield that Europeans LOVE The Simpsons. "Where are you from? ... Springfield! *gasp* Like The Simpsons!" It's inevitable. My girlfriend, when teaching her students the states, they exclaimed "Les Simpsons" at the mention of Springfield, Illinois. A group of friends relayed to me that when on a school trip to Italy, the people in the restaurant started singing the theme song to the show when they learned which city they were from. The only way I can explain such behavior is that of insecurity which is focused across the Atlantic. At root an American and European have different cultural values, perhaps indulging in something like McDonald's creates a form of dissonance?

Xenophobic is a word that I have seen tied in with French. In public online discussions however, I find that French people take an offense to being portrayed satirically. (No more, I'm sure than any person on the Internet would protest being satirised.) While in Tours, out of the ten or more Turkish run Kebab shops I have seen, seven have had their front windows broken! A recent survey of French people yielded a surprising result that one in seven French people admitted to being racist at some level. All in all, every country has a problem like this, and all across Europe politicians are saying that "maybe letting all these immigrants in was a problem". Just like Americans complaining about "illegals", not many people were saying anything when they needed hard labour at a low price. Of course, these results could mean a lot of things, for example maybe they are more willing to admit they are racist? What I want to highlight here is that as much as America gets lambasted for shitty things, France has no clean record either. For example, an anti-gay protest is scheduled in Paris today. Keep that in mind for your next angst ridden "I can't wait to graduate and move to Paris!" huff.

As for my French cultural experience I find things for the most part similar to when I was in Germany. There are lots of baguettes, and everyone seems to dress their best every single day. This is really all that is different. With Freiburg being so close to France there is a lot of French influence in the city. French wine, cheese, and people are all close at hand, and relatively inexpensive. A long time ago I came to the realization that everyone is the same everywhere. There are cultural, geographic, and environmental differences, but for the most part people like the same things. Societies have the same types of people: there's racists, smart people, fat people, athletic people, thrill seekers, reclusives, etceteria, etceteria, and they all get defined by the political borders that hold them, or something like that...

Germany's Cool, When It Isn't Crap

I have dragged my feet for a while before showing you this article, because... well of the host site. Some time ago I was instructed to go to a website, and I misheard the name as being worldofcrap.com . A common mistake. What I found instead of what I was looking for was some German guy's website devoted to crappy things, and features RandomFarts™ one of which plays when you access each page on the site. ಠ_ಠ

What I did find was Germany's Cool When it's Not Crap which lists the pros and cons of living in Germany. For a page from a website that has not left the year 1995, I actually think these things hold true today.

Unblocking GEMA on Youtube In Germany

What these Youtube videos have in common, is that they are all blocked in Germany. Not only are some of these videos uploaded by their original artists, they are from German artists. It has become a huge pet peeve of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQMXVlRCUQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bpThXP9f8I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGCmZPfe_bU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqXLY-6n4zA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOslA_kWuAk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFfZFvvuXWc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-zPgyQDD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJiLZpDfevI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFcikAqoIbc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPApntp7xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0cCRRFi1aA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl0G3uH71B8

There are of course, many ways to unblock the GEMA through proxies. My favorite is a Firefox add-on called Proxtube. Which will fire up every time you click on a GEMA-blocked Youtube link. A favorite site is Hidemyass.com . Another is stealhy which works for the BBC iPlayer if you're outside the United Kingdom. While I have never used it, if SOPA passes in the United States, then it might be worth checking out.

Ein Stusie Zimmer

I decided to take pictures of my room at Die Studentensiedlung (Stusie) in Freiburg for future students who might interested in living here. Unless your program makes you live here, in which case I guess you don't have much of a choice. Nevertheless it is student housing that will cost less than a dormitory in the U.S. And although you are not on campus, you are down the street from the lake-side park.

Here is my room. Yes, all rooms are singles. My favorite thing is the giant window that opens up. At least here they trust students enough to not put bars on the windows.

Back shot of my room. Some students just have a regular bookcase instead of the wall mount one. The shelves are adjustable. However this morning I tried to bring the bigger shelf down to desk-level so I could have some more work space, and almost broke it.  

One of my complaints is that I can hear my flatmates pee when my door is open.

Here is our kitchen. I share it with eight other people. We have two refrigerators, an oven and six stove tops. Students who live on the ground floor have more room in their kitchen for a small living room space.

This is our porch. We are only one floor up, but it makes for a nice view. It's a great place to eat, expecially with a large group of people.

All in all this is a nice place to be, especially compared to student housing in the U.S. However my only other complaint is that I was placed in a hall with three other international students. It is frustrating to come to a different country to learn another language only to find out that no one that lives with you can speak the language fluently. Oh well, at least I'm still in Germany! Hope this helps.

One Month In Germany

It has been a little over a month since I have been in Germany. I figured a lot of you might wonder how I have been doing, considering I have not written about it at all while I have been here. Therefore, today's post will only be about my time in Germany. Regularly scheduled content will follow.

Two years ago I spent five months in Berlin, but already this experience has been different. For example, last time I had schnitzel only once, and that was when we took a trip to Poland. If they're not serving schnitzel with potatoes and gravy at the dining hall here, it's meat with potatoes and gravy.  Maybe schnitzel is more of a "southern" thing? They even sell it next to the coldcuts in the grocery stores; pre-made and pre-cooked. Since I have been here in Freiburg, I have probably eaten schnitzel at least once a week, and honestly I have no problem with that. When I unexpectedly die at twenty-three from a coronary artery, they will cut me open and find pan fried chicken and beef. In fact I am eating schnitzel right now!

You probably wish you were me.

I am surprised at how much better my speaking has become since I have been here! Although, I believe that my writing grammar still leaves something to be desired; at the same time, I haven't written as much as I have spoken. I also have been avoiding speaking English. Last time I was surrounded by other American students, this time I have made a point of distancing myself and only speaking to the other international students who do not know English. The semester has not officially started yet, and the student housing buildings aren't teeming with students; so I have not met too many Germans. However, tomorrow I am going to put up bills on the public bulletin boards at the university looking for a German / English tandem partner.

Usually on the weekends I go to the black forest. The student transit card gets us there for free on the weekends, and after two on the weekdays. Downtown is really pretty, but does get old when you are down there every day for class anyways. When a group of fellow UMASS students stopped by in Freiburg after an orientation, they all commented on how much more beautiful the city was compared to where they were, and were surprised that I spent my weekends in the black forest. However I think the latter response was more their surprise at me rather spending my free time alone in the woods than in a club, rather than the availability of transport to the black forest. Oh well.

Other than that  I usually spend my time in Seepark, which is a park around a giant man made lake that is about a block down the street from me. I take my runs there, and it is also a nice place to relax. There is all sorts of students, and people everywhere. You can swim in the lake (although it smells like goose shit), and there is also a beer garden. On Sundays some people gather together on a hill there and sing. I think they might be holding mass, but all I know is that I can hear them from my bedroom.

This time I most likely will not travel as much due to budget constraints. Last time around I went to Erfurt, Weimar (also Buchenwald), Dresden, Prauge, and Fankfurt Oder (to walk into Poland) and all of this was included in the program. However as I mentioned already Freiburg is a beautiful city and I am really ok with not leaving to go somewhere else any time soon.

The quality of food here is high, and is also relatively inexpensive. As a result I usually spend the pocket money I have on döners, Ritter chocolate, marzipan cake, blackforest cake, strong coffee, fresh bread, croissants, and of course schnitzel. You can buy a fresh, flaky croissant for 0.30€ at almost any bakery right down the street. The company Dr. Oetker makes really good frozen pizzas that I will buy when they are on sale. I sometimes felt like a typical American buying them all the time, but I felt better about it when German student professed to me that they were his favorite meal to have for dinner!

Other than that my money gets spent on books:

Yes, I purchased two dictionaries.

I have been doing a good job not spending too much money on these, but then again it is hard to feel bad about buying books. And it's a better investment than a night out drinking. The heard of the German department at my old college told me I should spend as much time as possible in book stores in Germany because it is one of the resources that the U.S. doesn't have. After all if you're a German major, and a multiple stories of German books doesn't get you excited, you might want to reevaluate your priorities.

Nevertheless I have only been here for a month. And I know I had a different impression of Germany my first month in Berlin compared to the end of my trip. Only time will tell if I feel similarly at the end of my year-long stay. Until next time.

Studienforum Berlin

Two years ago I went to Germany for the first time through a program called Studienforum Berlin. At the time I was attending Nazareth College of Rochester, and I was disenchanted with the school. With about half of the students commuting, and being located in a wealthy suburb outside of Rochester New York; my weekends were usually filled with video games, talking to dining hall staff, roaming the empty campus out of boredom, and snow. I applied to transfer to the The University of Massachusetts the next academic year and I received deferred enrollment, which meant I would have to spend another semester at Nazareth.

A friend of mine, a German Literature major, suggested that if I was bored at the school I should consider going abroad. He said that the school's German program was really good, and the classes would count for my general education requirements. He set up the appointment for me to meet with the German Professor at Nazareth, and I signed my name on the dotted line the day we met to speak about the program. What I was getting - for the same price of tuition that Nazareth charged (sans Nazareth's room and board, i.e. a lot of money) , was four classes, an internship, and a stay with a host family in Berlin. I was also given a form to fill out as to preferences as to what I was looking for in terms of living. There was also a handwritten essay I needed to turn in along with some other additional paperwork.

I selected to take German history, German literature and an European business course, on top of a German language course which ran for the first month. These classes are taught in English (outside of the language course, of course). After that the three courses would start, and then for the final month we would be attending our internships. The professors for the classes were fantastic. The language courses were taught by the teachers hired by the language school. However, the professors for the other classes were supplied by Studienforum. I would go as far to say that the professors were overqualified. One of my favorite classes I ever took was 20th Century German Theater, Literature and Caberet. The professor had taught at Smith College, Wellesley, and had edited an academic journal on East German culture and society for a number of years.

During the program our group traveled to Erfurt, Weimar (also Buchenwald), Dresden, Prauge, and Fankfurt Oder (to walk into Poland). All of the travel coasts were covered by the price of the program. Over time I did feel like the traveling was a little much, and that I did not have as much free time in Berlin as I wanted. Although I did get out - see: yesterday's post. Sometimes I was so exhausted that I just needed a free day to rest. However looking back I am thankful that I got to see so much of Germany while I was there. Compared to the program that I am currently in, there are no excursions built into the program. Last week for example I paid extra money to go to the Black Forest. The excursion was actually the group of students being chartered around to different tourist destinations on a bus. You should have seen how upset I was when they woke me up to see the world's largest cuckoo clock.

For my internship I was placed in an English speaking school, with the tech guy. Originally I was supposed to work in a production room, but the they said said that my language skill at the time was not competent enough. When I transferred to UMASS, I was informed that they have a policy of not counting transfer credits from internships. Oh well, neither of these things are the program's fault. Other places students were placed elsewhere based on their majors or interests; and included a museum, the Bundestag, and classrooms.

When we did have free time there was naturally a lot to do just because we were in Berlin. I got to see a ton of shows, films, plays, museums, and performances. Also many of these things were at a discount price because I was a student. Often times we went to performances and museums for the history and literature classes. I am sure the same was true for the music course. The program also had a German person who was a little older than us come along with us on excursions, and would go out with us. Had she not been around, I am certain one of us would have died.

My only complaint about the program would be the lack of language immersion. Yes, you are with a host family, but in all your classes you are with the other Americans in your group. This is also true for the excursions, which take up a considerate amount of time. As a result you probably are not speaking a lot of German. On the other hand, this is something I like about the program I am in now, I am essentially on my own. It's scary, but scary fun; you know the kind of scary fun where if you don't have enough money in your German bank account by a certain time you could lose your housing! Actually something similar to that almost happened to me the last time too...

I am aware of students from other schools other than Nazareth going to Germany through Studienforum Berlin. I also know they offer programs at other times of the year, although I know nothing more than what is listed on their website. If you are interested in either program, you can e-mail them through the site, although the program I was in was during the fall semester, so you may have to wait a year. I would highly suggest the program, for all the reasons mentioned above. Although immersion was sort-of a problem you can always just distance yourself from "the group"; and unlike me, if you've taken German language courses before you go, you probably wont get placed into a school (unless you want to be).

I don't want to review the program I currently with now because I have only been here for two to three weeks, and well... I am currently with them, so right now I can't make a judgement call on it. Maybe in another two years.

Once again, here's the link - http://www.studienforum-berlin.de/index.html

Teufelsberg

It has been a busy week for me, I have been trying to get an Internet connection in my room so that I can work on the site on my time. Computer access here at the Freiburg University can be scarce and limited at times. Until then, enjoy these photos taken at Teufelsberg (Devil''s Mountain); an abandoned Cold War listening station built by the Americans on top of a artificial hill outside Berlin, which itself was on top of a Nazi military college. These pictures were taken in the fall of 2009.

Germany Bound

Image from Wikimedia Commons .

By the time you read this, I will hopefully be on a plane to Reykjavik, then Frankfurt, and then finally a train to Freiburg im Breisgau. From here on out this site will be the best way to keep in touch with what I am doing while in Freiburg (especially if you came here through Facebook). As a result expect a lot of original pictures and content pertaining to German, Germany, and language learning. Posts will of course still be around central subjects / topics and will not be journal entries.

My program director said to plan on not having Internet for the first month after arrival. In order to plan ahead I had pre-written posts which will be automatically posted, just like this one! Unfortunately I do not save my drafts on Blogger and my computer crashed, and had to be formatted; so those posts are gone. I guess that's what I get for planning ahead. Nevertheless I will have plenty of time while sitting around in airports to type up the articles again. Just give it some time.

The Umlaut

On first sight one of the things that throws off many people when they see the German language is the Germanic umlaut. To them it is a weird symbol reserved for metal bands;

If you're reading this site, you're probably more familiar with something like this.

An umlaut is really a way to let you know that a vowel should be stressed more like following vowel. In German the word umlaut is a compound of the words "um" - "around" , and "laut"- "sound" . I went a little nuts the past couple days trying to find the IPA symbols, and pronunciation for vowels with the umlaut. While not a vowel, the German letter ß ( sharp s) for example is pronounced [s] .

The sharp s is a pretty cool letter in itself.

These pronunciations do exist and Wikipedia does list them on the page for German grammar. However simply knowing the chart is not enough because there are special rules regarding syllable stress, and of course exceptions for certain words.

I don't think I should really be surprised after searching out for something I thought I really wanted, that it's not what I wanted at all. The chart still is important though, because you are going to want to know when someone is using an umlaut. The use of the umlaut can help designate past tense "fallen - fällen" "to fall - to fell" , "Fuß - Füße" "foot - feet" , "lang - Länge" "long - length" . Although rules for written and spoken German can be different.

In my search for videos on pronouncing these letter, I was bombarded with videos of different bands named Umlaut. I wish I was fucking kidding. I did find a cute video that covers the pronunciation of German words with the umlaut in them. It sort of supports the suggestion that has been made to me concerning the pronunciation of them; which is to stress any vowels that have an umlaut above them.


                                  

Part of me now thinks that the pronunciation and inflection of words is impossible to teach through the format of text because there is so many different ways people say, or can say words. There's the classic example of "ghoti" spelling the word "fish" . Hell, I pronounced the word "pint" like "stint" until the junior year of high-school! While I lay awake in bed and contemplate German phonology, check out that video, and leave a comment or e-mail me if you have something interesting to say!

German Links

Time is ticking away until I ship off to Germany. Recently most of the content on the site has been geared towards cognitive science, and not language. In order to prepare for the massive amount of immersion I am about to face, I figure it is time to change gears. In order to get us kicked off, here is a list of German learning websites and resources. If you can think of anything to include just leave a comment below and I'll be sure to add it.


Dictionaries
Canoo - German dictionary and grammer
Google Translate - The bane of language teachers. Better than Babel-fish because Google is always finding new ways of tweaking it. Still can often be grammatically wrong of course.
LEO - an open dictionary project that was started in the mid-nineties.
Rhyming Dictionary - Includes other languages

Forums - I actually do not think any of these forums are worthwhile, but they are here if you want to check them out.
About.com's German Forum - Might help you find other resources.
Krautchan - German image board. Adult material and bad taste, it's 4chan in German.
politik.de

News
Das Bild - tabloid
Der Tagesspiegel
Deutsche Welle - German news for German language learners. Includes easy to read news articles, and slow speaking newscasts. I highly recommend this.
Deutsche Welle Podcasts
Die Zeit
Goethe Institute - Information on the German-speaking world.
HR Online - news site based out of Hessen.

Announcement Update

Recently I have had inquires regarding the direction of Always Avoid Alliteration. I wanted to take some time to clear things up and let readers know what to expect. Ideally, when this project first started I wanted to post five days a week. Background work on this site (tweaking html as well as the blogger code for example) takes up some of this time, as well as making sure the posts are a quality of the highest standard.

Considering that I will be here, you shouldn't
feel bad that I will be gone for a little while.

In September I will be going to Freiburg, Germany for a year. I will still update while I am there, but there will be some downtime while I first get adjusted. In order to work around this I have done two things. First, I have already written articles which will auto-post while I am away. Second, I have contacted people about being guest writers for the site. Their knowledge and interests coincide with languages, but I am also working out letting them make posts that are loosely related, or pertaining to Cognitive Science or their interests. Also while I am in Germany there of course be a larger influx of German language learning posts; considering my primary goal while I am there is to become fluent in the language. Be sure to keep posted!

Next week will also be an "off topic week". I don't know what I'm going to call it yet, but there will be five days of posts consisting of topics that don't necessarily have to do with the site. Some of the topics have briefly come up in other posts and I have gotten a lot of positive reactions to those so I figure why not cater to the audience? Topics will include social engineering, and censorship in video games. This will also give me time to come up with some more material pertaining to language, and Cog Sci.

If I could get published, this is how the cover of
the book would look like when you hold it open.

Finally, I am working on a book. It has been coming along nicely now, and when it is finished it will be available to download for free! A lot of information I have ingested over the years has come from the Internet, and as such has been free. I am simply repaying the favor after all these years. The title will be 'Motherfucker Why You Reading?' Not only is it a throwback to a Bill Hicks joke, it is also a reference to an incident I had in middle school. Another reason I am giving the book away for free is that even if I could ever get published, I probably couldn't keep the title, and frankly if I can't write a book with the word Motherfucker in it, then I would rather not write a book at all. Motherfucker Why You Reading will be about my experiences facing incompetent teachers, policies, and anti-intellectualism in the American school system. I have been through three catholic schools, two public schools, one of which was ranked in the bottom five in the state, as well as a liberal arts college and state university. I figure I have enough "academic diversity" to pull through something like this. I promise that the book will be as entertaining, informative, and funny as a free book can be.

Thanks for reading!

Foreign Radio

One of the things I cannot stand when I listen to the radio in a different country is the amount of English language music that is played. In Mexico it was Bob Marley, and in Germany it was sixties music like the Beegees. You expect to hear a lot of music in the native tongue but that is not really the case. I guess it has to do with the fact that American culture is an exported good. On the other hand the 2600 Magazine editors have an episode up on their radio show Off The Wall on Norway and Norweigen radio. Throughout the episode they play songs from the radio there, which has a surprising variety of music. Maybe I'm just not going to the right places?

You can usually get away with listening to news radio. Itunes, under "radio" and then "news/talk radio" or "international/world" has a huge amount of foreign radio stations which are streamed to your computer. For some reason though you cannot search the lists, which is kind of a pain in the ass. Hopefully they will update this in the near future.

There are plenty of free language learning podcasts out there. I know a fair amount of German ones. Some of my favorites are put out by Deutsche Welle, which is more or less news site for German language learners. They also put out German news podcasts which are spoken spoken slowly which is great for intermediate learners. Do any of you know of any other good podcasts or news sites for language learners?

Object Names

I only have a picture of Köhler's article,
but trying to read font at this resolution
is strictly reserved for masochists.

One of the most mentioned studies that comes up in pop psychology is that of the the bouba kiki effect, which was the result of a study conducted by the gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler (who while in Germany, and in the possesion of balls of steel, denounced the Nazi party publicly in 1933).This now famous study can be found in almost any psych textbook, as well as more recently Boing Boing.

The test is simple, a subject is presented with two pictures next to each other. One is a bouba and the other is a kiki. Which one is which?

If you said that the left image is a kiki and the right round shape is a bouba then you would be in line with about ninety percent of Spanish and English speakers who took this test. In fact, the only people who are behind the standard bell curve are the autistic. One explanation given for why we do this is that during articulation, a rounded shape of the mouth is needed to say "bouba" and a more angular mouth shape is needed to say "kiki".

However I would be more interested in the names people would come up for these objects on their own. After all, would these rules apply outside the constraint of only two names? After all ks and is are pointy letters, while all the letters in "bouba" are round. Would speakers of languages that uses different alphabets show us different results? Is the shape of our letters based on how we articulate the phoneme or how it sounds?

When I am finally able to return home I am going to print out this picture and see what I an get people to tell me, outside of the constraint of two names.