I see sounds as shapes. Synaesthesia has given me an extraordinary ability for languages

Kim Elms, a speech pathologist, experiences auditory-visual synesthesia, where sounds trigger visual perceptions. Car journeys with her partner, a former DJ, are challenging due to the visual static and flashes of light caused by loud music. The phenomenon is hard to define, but she describes it as seeing sound wave-like images or neuron connections. She discovered her synesthesia in her thirties, despite having it her whole life. This ability significantly aided her in linguistics, particularly in language learning. In school, she excelled in Japanese; seeing words and sounds as images aided memory. She later studied Spanish, Korean, and Indonesian with ease, utilizing this unique skill. Elms joined the air force as an intelligence officer, later taking the language aptitude test. The test results revealed she got every answer right, which was remarkable. This natural ability highlights the impact of synesthesia on her language skills.