Transcription
[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of the Hebrew Time podcast. How are you? I hope you are well and enjoying the summer that has arrived. Personally, last week I took a vacation from work and traveled to Poland. But the truth is, I didn't just travel for a trip, but I traveled for a specific event called the Polyglot Gathering. What is this thing and what exactly did I do there? That is the topic of our episode today. But before we begin, I want to remind you that you can support this podcast and also get the transcript of the episode, meaning the text of this episode, when you subscribe. The subscription can be done on the Kopi platform or on a platform called Patreon. It costs 10 dollars a month and it really, really helps me to continue making the podcast. Okay, let's start talking about our topic. Ready? Let's [Music] begin. Okay, so first of all, we start with the name. I mentioned the phrase Polyglot Gathering, so what is a gathering? A gathering is like a meeting of many, many people in one place. Every gathering has a topic, and usually gatherings are something related to work. For example, if you are doctors, let's say you are surgeons, then probably as part of your work, once a year you will go to a gathering of surgeons, and at this gathering you will meet surgeons from all over the world and talk about your work, about what you do, what's new in your work, what perhaps shouldn't be done, all sorts of things like that. Usually, at gatherings, there are lectures, and people also have the opportunity to talk to each other and exchange knowledge. In English, it's called a conference, and in Russian, it's "konferentsiya". And the gathering I went to is called The Polyglot Gathering. That is actually the name of the gathering. Now, what is a polyglot? You probably already hear that it's not a Hebrew word. It's a word that comes from Greek. It has two parts. The first part, "poly", means many. The second part, "glot", this word means tongue. Tongue is the part we have in our mouth that we move up and down, and it's also another way to say language. So, polyglot means many languages, and actually, polyglots are people who speak many languages. How many languages? And what does it actually mean to speak a certain language? Well, the truth is, there isn't one rule. For example, at the gathering I was at, there isn't a specific standard. Actually, people can come to the gathering even if they speak only one language. But usually, the people at the gathering speak at least three or four languages, and there are also those who speak more. There are people who speak 12 languages, 15 languages, and even 20 languages at different levels. This means that if I can speak five different languages, it doesn't mean that in all of them I can speak at the same level. Of course, there are languages in which I am better and languages in which I am [Music] worse. So, what do you do at this gathering? The truth is, mostly you talk. You talk everywhere, all the time. The gathering took place in a hotel in a small town outside of Warsaw, and therefore the people who were at the gathering could talk to each other almost 24/7. 24/7 is an expression that means all hours of the day, seven days a week, meaning all the time, without a break. So, people talked at breakfast, and in the garden outside the hotel, and in the hallways, and at the bar, and even in line for the bathroom, really everywhere. Because actually, that is the purpose of the gathering. Those who come to this gathering love to learn different languages and also love to speak the languages they know. So, people talk all the time and everywhere. By the way, this is not the first time this gathering is taking place. As far as I know, the first gathering was in 2014, and since then the gathering has taken place every year, except for the time of Corona. And it has also moved to several countries. I know there was a Polyglot Gathering in Berlin, and there was also one in Bratislava, and now it's the second year that it's taking place in Poland, in a small town outside of Warsaw. So, actually, many, many people who come to this gathering know each other from previous gatherings. On the first day I arrived, I constantly saw people meeting their friends, and they were very, very happy. But the truth is, even I, who didn't know anyone before this gathering, very quickly started talking to people and also connected with them. One of the things that helps with this is that every participant, meaning every person at the gathering, has a name tag, and on the tag are written the languages that the person speaks and at what level they speak these languages. This means that it is actually like a card that people put on their neck, meaning they put it on their body, so that everyone who talks to them can see this card. In the transcript, I will put a picture of my tag. On my tag it says my name is Nadia, that I am from Israel, that my native languages are Russian and Hebrew, that I speak English very well, and then that I speak German and Swedish at a B level, which is a good level, but not very, very, very good. And then there is also French and Arabic at an A level. It's a bit funny because actually French, I can understand well, I just haven't spoken it for a very long time. And Arabic, I understand almost not at all. I'm really, really, really at the beginning, I'm just learning a little now. But in any case, I wrote these languages on the card. Now, there are people who put only the languages they know really well on the card, and there are people who put on their card every language in which they know even a few sentences. It's something very, very personal, and there's no standard for it, there's no rule. But what it does is it really, really helps when you start talking to other people, because then you don't need to ask what languages you speak, but you just look for five seconds at their tag, you see, for example, that this person speaks German well, and then you start talking to them in German. Or someone sees that I am from Israel and I speak Hebrew, so they start talking to me in Hebrew. This gathering, in general, lasts for six days, but I decided to come for only three because it was my first time, and I wanted to see what this thing is and if I enjoy participating in something like this. And the truth is that after three days, I can say that yes, it was excellent. I had a lot, a lot of fun. It was very intense because I was really talking to different people all the time and constantly switching from language to language. So, actually, you need a lot, a lot of energy to do this for many hours. But there was something very special in this place. I was very happy to meet so many people who love to learn languages. Some of the people, by the way, actually work in the languages they learn, or they are involved in something related to languages, or they research languages. But there are also many people who simply learn languages for fun, like I do. All the people I met at the gathering were very, very nice. Many, many people were very interesting, and of course, I also met people who are learning Hebrew. And I was very interested to hear how they learned Hebrew and why, and what they like to do in Hebrew. And I thought that it might be interesting for you too. So, in the next episodes of the podcast, I am going to bring you two interviews with people who are learning Hebrew. You will hear them speak Hebrew, you will hear their story, and I will also tell a bit about various things related to what they are saying. I hope it will be interesting for you and also give you more motivation to learn Hebrew, just like this gathering gave me a lot, a lot of motivation to continue learning the languages I am learning. I returned home feeling that I really want to invest in the languages I am learning, and perhaps also start learning a new language. But we will talk about that in the future. That's it, we have reached the end of the episode. The truth is, I want to try and make shorter episodes so that it might be a little easier for you to listen to this podcast. You are absolutely welcome to write me an email and tell me what you think about it, whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. In any case, thank you very, very much for listening, and we will, of course, hear each other next time. Alright, bye, see you, ciao.