My experience at the Polyglot Gathering in Czechia

The Polyglot Gathering is an event for language lovers, which has been taking place in different locations in May each year for about 10 years. By joining you can connect with fellow polyglots (though you do not have to speak multiple languages to join), join talks on the topic and participate to other culture- and language related activities. The last few years, around 800 people participated.

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I went to the Polyglot Gathering for the first time in 2024, In Prague, for just one day. I liked it enough to also join the 2025 and 2026 Polyglot Gatherings in Brno, still in the Czech Republic, but close to Vienna.

Signing up and info Pre-gathering

You can check out programs of past editions, info and such on the Polyglot Gathering website before you sign up, which will mean among others:

• Pick the days you will join and pay depending on that. 5 days might seem a lot, but they passed by so quickly and I did not really feel tired (other do though..) you cannot choose to pay for a half day though.
• Accomodation: possibility to book via the Polyglot Gathering – either a student dorm or a hotel
• meals: In Prague you had to select whether you’d be eating at the venue’s canteen, in Brno you were free to go there or not. You were actually always free, but in Prague you had to pay in advance, so a pity to waste money..
• Add languages to your language tag: add the language (and related flag!) you speak with their level.
• You also have the option to purchase a polyglot gathering T-shirt

Pros/cons of signing up early (usually possible around 6 months ahead):

advantages	disadvantages
early bird discount	you will not get a (full) refund by cancelling (or full refund -50€ if you are early)
accomodation through the Gathering, close to the venue
more T-shirts of your sizes available
your name appears on top of the registered people page

My first time it was a last-minute decision, I stayed in Prague only 3 days and join the Polyglot Gathering one full day. The second time I joined for 3 days and in 2026 I at last joined for the full week – Booking for 5 days was the same price as for 3 too, so if you’re unsure if you’ll come the whole week you won’t lose money. I booked a hostel everytime because I was too late for the cheap Gathering accomodation (it gets sold out fast)- however I did find a hostel in the city centre for a similar price (and the student dorm was not avaible for all the nights I would need).

Get ready for the Polyglot Gathering before it starts

Few months before the event takes place, the program is uploaded along with some extra info about the location. I like to plan in advance what I will do, so I write down the ones I am interested in for each day. It can also be fun to learn a little of the local language.

Some time slots had multiple interesting courses (choosing one was always difficult), others none I fancied going to, but I almost always went to one, except for a couple times I turned to language tables instead.

The Gathering: first day, talks and activities

The first time you get to the venue, you can register and get the Gathering kit: a tote bag with a notebook, a pen, few pins, (also a bottle of water the first time) and of course your language tag and if you purchased it, a T-shirt !

if you join on the very first day (Wednesday), there are no talks planned – it is mainly a half-day of icebreakers and games to get to know others. The rest of the days you have 5 talks/activity slots per day (with (free) coffee breaks inbetween) and an evening event.

Activities at the Polyglot Gathering include:

• talks (from linguistics to language learning strategies to quizzes) and workshops (as language crassh courses) – with breaks to get free te and coffee between them
• language tables to practice your target languages, from Spanish to small minority languages, and a “no English Zone”
• Evening events as Food Festival, talent shows
• At the venue you can also purchase, thrift, exchange and just pick free books – language and linguistics related books as well as miscellaneous books in whatever language;
• Sightseeing tours are also organized on several days.

Talks topics at the Polyglot Gathering

And here are the talks/workshops I took part in in the respective domains:

linguistics	culture	study methods	crash courses
	How Kinship systems shape your worldview and reality: cross-cultural anecdotes – Israel Lai		Polish – Zuzanna Yevtushyk
Characteristics of major language families (mainly Romance, Germanic, Slavic and facts about further ones) – Adam Raelson	language politeness in Norwegian & Swedish	Brain computer interfaces are coming- Why we now need to aim to C3 level	Rumantsch
South american indigenous languages	Kebabnorsk: foreign influence on slang in Norwegian	The Power of the Hour – Swedish in 6 months -Krisztina Féher	v
Greenlandic	v	v	v

I’d say my favourites in 2024 were the one about language families and hearing about the strategies used to learn Swedish one hour a day – the way she tracked it was quite inspiring and gave me good insights. Learning about different ways different languages name family members was also pretty cool! See some slides below.

Books

The first time I arrived towards the end of the Gathering, and there was pretty much only Esperanto books left, but I still got a book explaining German idioms, and a tiny tourist phrasebook for Czech. Last time I was there from day 1 and ended up getting a bunch of books at once…

Meals at the Polyglot Gathering

The Gathering is an excuse to explore local food too, and that includes the venue’s canteen.

In Brno, the canteen had weight-based price as well. Which is great if you like to try small quantities of everything like I do..

I went to local restaurants either fellow polyglots too (we had a discount for one close to the venue), Thai and Vietnamese restaurants in the centre were also popular options.

Closing ceremony & Final Evening

As it was the last day, the final ceremony took place at the end of the lectures, and it was a sum up of the event, organisational effort of the team behind it, Slovakian Edukácia@Internet as main party, thanking all partners and sponsors. and insights about where the Gathering will be next here. Which might be Prague again. Or somewhere in central Europe. Sorry, non-Europeans…

Once the Gathering was over, we still had the possibility to meetup with other polyglots at the beer garden in the evening. As I had only been there that day, I had not had the chance to really chat a lot with others yet. It was quite fun and got to talk to quite a few people – notably a person I am a mutual follower of on tiktok, it was quite amazing to see her in real life – unexpectedly!! I also got Polish chocolates :). Afterwards some people went to pubs – I had a bit trouble switching from Swedish to norwegian after a drink, I must say.

Though English stayed in most contexts as the lingua franca, I still got to speak quite a few languages. I look forward to the next time I will be able to join it, hopefully for longer than just one day!

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