Cultural models and graphs
If you ever work for a big corporation in an international setting, you will be forced to endure days of seminars about inter-cultural understanding. Although these companies could save millions each year by asking their employees to just treat other people with respect, they instead pay people to make up models and graphs to stereotype the different cultures of the world.
A typical example is the onion model of the American vs. the German coconut. Each person keeps their innermost secrets to themselves until you have unwrapped the vegetable or fruit, respectively. The American has layers and layers to peel off, and although each layer comes off seemingly effortlessly, getting to the core of an American takes a long time. With the German on the other hand the outer shell is hard and hairy and you feel like you never make any progress breaking into the core until the day the shell suddenly breaks apart, usually while you are both drunk at the company Christmas party.
If you are an expatriate, your company may pay some overpriced consultant to explain to you the graph of how your feeling of well-being progresses as you experience the stages of culture shock. They will tell you how happy and excited you will be in the beginning, but then how you will soon be less happy as the realities of the new setting take place, but that things will get better, and you may even enjoy your new home as much as your old home depending on whether your new home is as enjoyable as your old home, plus some other truly insightful details.
Well, times are tough now, and these useless programs are certainly easy targets for cutbacks in corporate budgets. Therefore, as a public service, Nothing For Ungood is releasing a new graph with arbitrary units as fodder for the marketing materials of these soon to be unemployed liberal arts phds:
This graph shows how smart you sound while speaking German in terms of how good your ability to speak German actually is. When you first start out in the beginner phase, you can only say things like “Ick heisse John. Ick kann sprecken Deutsch.” At this point you sound like a moron, but as your German improves to the point where you can talk about the weather, your credibility as an intelligent human sky rockets and peaks at the point where you realize that when you look up words in the German/English dictionary you shouldn’t always pick the one that sounds just like English because it shares a Latin root. Suddenly you stop saying “Ich muss etwas für die Party präparieren,” and instead replace it with ”Ich muss etwas für die Party vorbereiten,” and instantly you sound a bit dumber.
There is an inflection point, though, at the moment in which you stop just saying the words you don’t know in English and figure out ways to express yourself completely in German. This is shortly followed by realizing that some words can only be said in English without causing laughter, like when you talk about your tragbaren Rechner. Once you understand the right times to use English words the appearance of your intelligence approaches a local maximum until you grow tired of trying to pronounce things in German correctly. In the end you start sounding like a person of normal intelligence once you learn that, in German, every thought or feeling you have is best expressed in terms of pigs and sausage.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Besides the pig and sausage part, that graph is perfect
January 19th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Am I the only one not to get the pigs-and-sausage joke? And I’m German
Could someone please explain it to the mentally challenged, please?
January 19th, 2009 at 8:54 am
right on, there’s a guy who get’s the big pigture, a guy that has sussed it out if it’s about the sausage and when it’s alright to let it be sausage to you.
”In the end you start sounding like a person of normal intelligence …” albeit that’ll happen eventually, in all likelihood the porcine timing will be when pigs fly …
so back to square one.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:32 am
@ Adriano
Schweineteuer, schweineheiß, schweinigelig, Schwein haben, “Du Ferkel!”, es geht um die Wurst, alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei, Wurstfinger, Wurschtigkeit, armes Würstchen… muß ich noch mehr sagen?
January 19th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Sauhund, saumäßig, sauheiß, saulaune, saulustig…
Lange nicht gehört diese Ausdrücke. Die Jugend benutzt solch differenzierte Ausdrücke nicht mehr und greift auf die Wörter geil und porno zurück. Die gehen irgendwie immer. ;O)
January 19th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
It is very interesting that this graph looks just like a damped harmonic oscillation…
January 19th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The same graph is used for Gartner’s hype cycles (Gartner is like the bible for IT consultants, you can always find a Gartner study supporting your argument) as well as for product revenue lifecycles in marketing as well as… It seems to be universal - so John’s graph must be “correct”
January 19th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Ach, ich fühle mich heut’ auch so total wurstsalatig…
January 19th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
“Die Jugend benutzt solch differenzierte Ausdrücke nicht mehr und greift auf die Wörter geil und porno zurück. Die gehen irgendwie immer. ;O)”
Korrekt…du Opfer
German like to think in stereotypes, so if you learn german try not to be too perfect and keep a recognizable acccent, anything else would irritate people.
btw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoB7Req4EqU
January 19th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
“…in German, every thought or feeling you have is best expressed in terms of pigs and sausage.”
“Das ist mir doch Wurscht!”
“Mal ordentlich die Sau rauslassen!”
“In der allergrößten Not schmeckt die Wurst auch ohne Brot!”
“Puh, noch gerade mal so Schwein gehabt!”
“Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei!”
“Welches Schweinderl hätten’s denn gern?”
January 19th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Well, I got it… Seems I got up too early this morning…
Thanks for your help
January 19th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Reading this blog is like buying a pig in a poke, but what the hell - you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Aber so eine Schweinerei habe ich noch nie gelesen. Isch mir doch Wurscht, es interessiert sowieso keine Sau. Irgendwann muss du deinen inneren Schweinhund überwinden, du blöde Kuh.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Hahaha spot on! I thought we always learned that Germans were the onions?
Anyways, you left off the very end where you reach the highest level of self awareness : “you intentionally try to pronounce things wrong/schwäbisch”.
Nickt sleck, gellllllllllllll!
January 20th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Awesome post! I really love it - especially the graph. Where did you get the onion vs. coconut model from? Or did you come up with it by yourself?
January 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
“Das ist mir doch Wurscht!” - Das ist aber Frankfurterisch.
“Welches Schweinderl hätten’s denn gern?” - Da kennt jemand noch “Was bin ich?”
Lieber Sau und Wurst, als Sch**ß, G**l usw. Ich glaube fast, dass Deutsch noch lange nicht so vulgär ist, wie amerikanisches Englisch.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
>> “Das ist mir doch Wurscht!” - Das ist aber Frankfurterisch.
Das ist inzwischen ein echtes geflügeltes Wort. Hab’ ich schon unzählige Male hier in Norddeutschland gehört. Meiner Meinung nach sogar häufiger als “Is’ mir doch schietegal!”.
Interessanterweise auch tatsächlich eher mit “Wurscht”, als mit “Wurst”.
Ups, mein erster Kommentar hier auf deutsch, glaub ich.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
You should contribute the graph to http://www.graphjam.com - a site about funny graphs.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
” “Welches Schweinderl hätten’s denn gern?” - Da kennt jemand noch “Was bin ich?” ”
Ist doch Kult!!
Außerdem deutschlandweit bekannt: “Kein Schwein ruft mich an, keine Sau interessiert sich für mich…” (War das nicht mal ein Chanson oder ein Schlager oder sowas?)
January 20th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Na, da hat sich die Wartezeit auf den nächsten Eintrag doch gelohnt
January 20th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
@Sommermorgen - the coconut/onions models are certainly not from me. I can’t remember where I first heard about them, but I have heard the analogy a few times.
@Polypus, yes the graph is a dampened sine wave. You can recreate it with the following function: y=A[sin(x-pi/2)e^(-0.02x) + 1] and verify against a native English speaking subject learning German that it indeed fits perfectly arbitrarily.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
@Raubvogel: Comedian Harmonists.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
>> @Raubvogel: Comedian Harmonists.
Falsch, klingt nur so, war aber Max Raabe.
Der hat natürlich auch Lieder von den Comedian Harmonists gesungen, “Kein Schwein ruft mich an” hat er aber selbt geschrieben.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
It’s rather interesting that the predominate goal in talking to Germans seems to be to sound smart.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:00 pm
But I always thought, that’s the meaning of life, isn’t it?
Trying to sound as smart as possible… preferably to such extent that other’s don’t even understand what you’re saying.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Germans don’t need to sound smart. We ARE smart and that is what makes us happy, not your American perception.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 am
“They will tell you how happy and excited you will be in the beginning, but then how you will soon be less happy as the realities of the new setting take place, but that things will get better, and you may even enjoy your new home as much as your old home depending on whether your new home is as enjoyable as your old home, plus some other truly insightful details.”
Very good observation
Isn’t it genius how some people have turned explaining obvious, generic facts into a highly-paid profession? Well I think the clueless people who pay them are to blame.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Saugeil!
January 24th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I wonder that no one mentioned the “hairy” reference from the coconut yet…
January 27th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Sehr schön, wie immer.
Sehr gute Beobachtung mit den “Latin Roots” - das Phänomen konnte ich schon des Öfteren erleben, aber nie erklären.
Interkulturelle Begegnungsworkshops zwischen westlich geprägten Ländern sind sicher überflüssig.
Meine indischen Kollegen hingegen habe ich erst nach 3 Tagen in einem solchen Lehrgang zu handhaben gelernt.
“Ja, kein Problem” bedeutet nämlich nicht zwangsläufig “Ja, kein Problem”.
Das sorgte früher für viel Verwirrung.
February 1st, 2009 at 10:01 am
Onion model vs. Coconut model?
What strange metaphores are that? Does the american onion mean, you have to peel off layer after layer to get to the core of the common american? Implying that this process will make you shed a lot of tears or wear protective glasses against the american stink?
And the implications of the coconut model? To get to the german coconut core you have to use excessive force, always in danger to shatter everything. And after you have succeded you realise that inside the german coconut everything is hollow and white, while the liquid is draining away?
Truly, very telling — this.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am
A good article, thanks!
I’ve just thought, why don’t you try to write in German speak? I think it would drive you to even more analysis/understanding of german language.
Leo
February 18th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Das erste Mal, dass ich deine Meinung teile. Nicht wieder nur blöde Klischees.
Und an alle anderen:
Learn German. Hitler spoke german, Alber Einstein spoke, and I do.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Nice graph. In some Bundesländer, you’d need to add the stage where you suddenly realize that you yourself speak reines Hochdeutsch, but no one else does.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:23 am
You are right Minze.
A lot of Germans dont speak so a good German linke the germans do.
…was die Phrasen angeht.. da kommt es darauf an wie alt die Leute sind.
The jung people I know would never say so.. sweet words like “S***e!”
They use words like fu*k and a lot of over scatology(?) words more often than the “pig-words”
November 19th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
schweinepriester!