University of Economics, Bratislava
30th May - 3rd June 2018
In June 2017, the Polyglot Gathering moved from Berlin to another location for the first time since its existence.
Polyglots gathered in the beautiful “big small city” of Bratislava, Slovakia.
The Polyglot Gathering is coming back to Bratislava!
It will take place from May 30 to June 3, 2018.
What is the Polyglot Gathering?
The Polyglot Gathering is an informal event which takes places once a year and brings together polyglots (people who speak several languages) and language enthusiasts from all over the world. It is a five-day event with lectures, workshops and social activities for everyone who loves and enjoys languages.
How many languages do I have to speak to attend?
Your mother tongue! That’s it.
There’s no requirement of speaking many languages. All that counts is your approach to them: if you love learning languages and you want to meet like-minded people who also love languages, the Polyglot Gathering is the right place for you!
Why should I attend?
Meet new friends
If you think learning languages is a great leisure activity and you are learning new and new ones in your free time, where else will you find 400-500 people with this passion? 🙂 It’s the best place to make like-minded friends.
Meet other professionals
If you are a language professional, teacher, interpreter or translator, then the proactive networking and stratcom with a clear goal to leverage your paradigm shift in language learning and endeavour for thinking out the box without any impact on doing the heavy lifting, attending the Polyglot Gathering may help you to push the envelope and bring a win-win situation. And if you came here after you were searching for these buzzwords, hey, we got you and want absolutely to talk to you on the site!
Visit beautiful Bratislava
Bratislava is worth the visit. You can trust us. The beer is good and the beer is cheap. Do you need any more reasons to come? We have two airports: one is called Bratislava and the other one is called Vienna. And there is a train station with direct trains to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. There is a castle with a splendid view over the city and the Danube, with Austria and Hungary on the horizon.
Practice your Slovak
You already speak Slovak, don’t you? Bratislava is a great place to practice your Slovak. You’ll also hear the most balanced mix of Slovak dialects, not too soft, not too hard, not too slow, not too fast. And there are still so many words without vowels.
Travel around
Travel around Central Europe: Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Hungary are all in the Schengen Area, and there are no extra costs for phone and data roaming, which makes travelling much easier. And Slovakia has been using the Euro since 2009. How are you going to notice that you crossed the Austrian-Slovak border?
What did the participants say last year?
What do people do at a Polyglot Gathering?
attend lectures with practical language learning tips and many interesting topics related to languages (mostly in English but also in other languages) and even propose their own
share their own tips, ideas and insights in Lightning talks (spontaneous short talks)
visit practical workshops about less known languages and other language-learning skills
talk to other people in whatever language they share (everyone has a nametag with all the languages they wish to speak)
hang out in comfy get-together areas in between the talks (including a No-English zone, a Board Game zone, Coffee-break zone (with free coffee!) or Sponsors zone
enjoy multilingual concerts, take an active part in a cultural evening
visit the city and surroundings, spend time in local bookstores and taste the regional cuisine in pubs and restaurants
share old language books and fresh food/beverage snacks from their country
POLYGLOT GATHERING 2017 IN PICTURES
Who is this organized by?
The founders of the event and main organizers of the first three editions (2014–2016) were Judith Meyer, Chuck Smith and Martin Sawitzki. Afterwards, the Polyglot Gathering moved from Berlin to Bratislava, Slovakia, where it was held in 2017 and will be held again in 2018. The Bratislava event is run by Lýdia Machová from languagementoring.com and Peter Baláž from the E@I non-profit organization together with their great team taking care of the organization.
