My experience at the Polyglot Gathering in Prague

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In May 2024 i went to the Polyglot Gathering – an event I had been dreaming about for a while, but did not know if I would never manage to join. However, after stumbling upon its existence not too long before it would take place, In the course of a few days I figured out I could actually make it! Here is my experience at it.

Sign-up, info Pre-gathering and visiting Prague

After checking out programs of past editions, info and such on the Polyglot Gathering website, I signed up a couple weeks before the event would take place. By signing up early on you would get discounts, so next time I’ll try to do this asap. The main thing to be sure about was getting there, and turns out there is a European Sleeper train to Prague.

I arrived there around 11am and had planned to just walk around on Saturday as it would have been a pity to just stay inside a building (and pay for an entire day of activities) while I had a brand new city and country to explore. I also tried the most touristy street food, the Trdelník (chimney). BUT of course, without ice cream, unlike everybody. I had lunch at the Havelska Koruna, budget authentic Czech food restaurant.

A challenge related to the Gathering was learning Czech. Having to start from scratch, I tried to focus on practical stuff as food vocabulary in the little time I had, and didn’t manage to go much further than memorizing words for apples and potatoes.

having to look up stuff slowed down my deciding process… That was frustrating! This was my first time in a country with a language I do not understand at all, last time I was 13… One thing I really look forward to if next year’s gathering will still be in Czechia, will be improving my Czech skills, if anything to navigate these things more efficiently.

Sunday: The Gathering

Anyway, I was ready to join the Gathering on Sunday, the last day of it. I met two Italian girls walking just outside the University building where the event took place, so I didn’t have to figure out myself how to exactly come in, as it was not super clear. As I registered I was given a tote bag with a notebook, a pen, few pins, a bottle of water and of course my language tag that I had filled in while signing up for the Polyglot Gathering! And, a t-shirt, that I had added to my registration.

I announced on social media I’d go, and found out a (Swedish-speaking) friend would be there. So I ended up speaking a lot of Swedish which on its turn attracted fellow Scandinavians hearing us..

I could already see the program (see below for the last day) shortly before the Gathering started, so i knew more or less what lectures I wanted to join.

Besides lectures there were also activities as language practice rooms (and a “no English Zone”), talent shows, quizzes, workshops, tasting international snacks.. But that will be for another time …I eventually picked these lectures:

• How Kinship systems shape your worldview and reality: cross-cultural anecdotes, by Israel Lai
• Polish crash course (1/2 of it) by Zuzanna Yevtushyk
• Characteristics of major language families (mainly Romance, Germanic, Slavic and facts about further ones), by Adam Raelson
• Brain computer interfaces are coming- Why we now need to aim to C3 level
• Esperanto and the other languages (slides in French and lecture in Esperanto)- by Michael Boris Mandirola
• The Power of the Hour – Swedish in 6 months by Krisztina Féher

one time slot had multiple interesting courses, others not as much, but most lectures were definitely interesting! I would have gone to a Chinese lecture instead of another one about competing with AI intelligence if I had to do this again, but for the rest I was satisfied with my choices. It was also a pity I had to leave the Polish Crash Course halfway through to go to the Languages Families lecture. Although I must say my brain cells were getting tired, the Czech I had learned wasn’t helpful beyond the first three sentences.

I’d say my favourites 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.

Breaks

Between each lecture there was a break, and you could get coffee or tea. and there were stands selling books, gadgets and stuff.

One was mostly just about Esperanto though – seems to be pretty big at language nerds events. I got a book explaining German idioms, and a tiny tourist phrasebook for Czech. Might be handy for another time!

The main break was of course lunch, a couple hours. You had the option to get lunch either everyday or not at all at the canteen, and it was available in 3 versions: meaty, vegetarian and vegan. Here too, you had to choose one and stick to it for all the days you’d stay there.

The best thing would be having the menu to begin with and freely deciding which version to pick, but I understand that’s for organisational reasons.

I was there only one day so I did not have to stick to only meat or only vegan dishes for 5 days. And I knew I would eat typical Czech food with meat outside anyway, so it was okay. On Sunday the vegetarian version was curry rice, the vegan couscous, the meaty schnitzel. And of course I got soup as side dish, typical Czech.

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!