The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

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Serpent
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Serpent » Fri May 19, 2017 5:22 pm

smallwhite wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Previous years, members have written HTLAL or LLORG on their name tags. This year, our own Rdearman will give a talk so he'd better mention the forum. :) Other than this possibility, I don't know.

I'm visualising Rdearman wearing sandwich boards as he gives his talk... :lol:

Seriously. We often talk about Google ranking so I believe we want to be known. With Bratislava comes a real opportunity. How can we take advantage of it?
I think the google ranking is mostly about attracting the people who google "how to learn spanish" or similar questions. If they already know about the polyglot gathering, chances are they know about the forum too. And even if they don't, they'll probably manage to learn their L2 sooner or later, or they'll eventually have more advanced issues and will find this place :D As long as they find their path it doesn't matter so much if they become htlal members or not.
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Serpent
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Serpent » Tue May 23, 2017 4:58 pm

The booklet is now available :D (note that Tim Owen's presentation is still being rescheduled)

Aaaand I'm going, at least to Bratislava :D Still haven't registered officialy, waiting to clear up some questions with the organizers :D

See you all!
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue May 23, 2017 5:20 pm

Serpent wrote:The booklet is now available :D (note that Tim Owen's presentation is still being rescheduled)

Aaaand I'm going, at least to Bratislava :D Still haven't registered officialy, waiting to clear up some questions with the organizers :D

See you all!

:shock: Are there no sports matches or anything that weekend?!

Looking forward to meeting you.
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Serpent » Tue May 23, 2017 5:41 pm

Haha you know me well :D <3 I indeed assumed there would be, but the season is over in most places. The most important event is the Champions League final, but I'm sure I'll manage to watch it :D Maybe even at a sports bar. There are also some international friendlies like Ireland-Uruguay on Sunday and then Hungary-Russia on Monday :)
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Cavesa » Tue May 23, 2017 9:55 pm

Sorry guys, but I am not coming :-(

Exams are crushing me, I'll spend Saturday asleep and Sunday in books.

I was so looking forward to meeting you all in person and I cannot :-(
I am angry with myself, it could have been done with some better planning months ago.

Have fun, enjoy it, write some of your experience afterwards, I'll be excited to at least read about all the fun you'll have had.
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Vedun » Tue May 23, 2017 10:15 pm

Sorry to hear that Cavesa. I myself made some gamblings with exams, but it fortunately it worked out.

Would anyone be interested in Bulgarian books for the bookcrossing? I have some learning material for German and French I no longer need and could share, but knowing how unpopular Bulgarian is with language learners, I wonder if it's worth to spare place for them in my otherwise limited baggage.

I also have one extra book with linguistic puzzles in Bulgarian, sort of like these ones here. That one I might bring regardless.

I can't help but be a little nervous about my arrival, it's my first time travelling by plane all by myself. What if my train arrives late to the airport (not exactly uncommon round here)? What if the security check brings up some obscure rule I didn't check? What if they want my passport even though ID only suffices? (both our countries are in EU) The ID document for the boarding pass is only one and can't be changed IIRC. Aargh, so many things that could go wrong.
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Cavesa » Tue May 23, 2017 10:23 pm

Vedun wrote:I can't help but be a little nervous about my arrival, it's my first time travelling by plane all by myself.

Hey, some parts of Bratislava may need modernisation (for example the main railway station is famous for its uglyness), but calling this time travel still sounds a bit offensive! :-D

(maybe I should't watch sci-fi so much. Nah, just joking. But this was an honest mistake at first, I trully had trouble understanding the sentence for a few moments :-D).
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed May 24, 2017 6:26 am

Too bad you can't come, Cavesa. :( Maybe next time.

I was going to remind everyone to bring some treats for the international food festival and books for the book crossing. They are looking for both language learning books and ordinary books like novels though last year they specified that they didn't really want novels in English. I was going to suggest that if you are in a non-English-speaking country and you see a used bookstore, garage sale or library sale, maybe you could pick up a couple of cheap books for the book crossing. Don't worry, Vedun, I'm sure even Bulgarian books will be welcome. In fact, they will probably be snapped up. Just put them on the table with the others and you'll never see them again.

I'm always nervous about traveling too, but it usually goes well. I always make extra sure of everything. For example, I check which train will get me to the airport two hours before my flight and then take the train before that just in case it's cancelled. It means I'm almost always at the airport about 3.5 hours early and spend a couple of hours wandering around looking in airport bookstores, but it's worth it to save my nerves. As for your passport, I guess you could take it just in case, if it makes you less stressed.

Make sure you have room in your luggage for all the books you're going to buy. That's why I take checked luggage. Assimil courses are really cheap at the Gathering, and there are other books too.
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby Nathan_Canada » Wed May 24, 2017 9:23 pm

Will the presentations of our lovely members be available for those of us not able to make it? On youtube or elsewhere?
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Re: The Polyglot Gathering, Bratislava 2017

Postby druckfehler » Wed May 24, 2017 9:28 pm

This is getting exciting! I'll bring some Korean books - do you think children's books are popular? I'd love to give those away, but I'd have to plan a trip to my family tomorrow to pick them up. So I'm wondering... I'd hate to take them all the way to Vienna, Bratislava and then home again ;)

Is a forum meetup planned with everyone who's attending? Or do I just attentively look at the name tags for clues? :)
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