Friends’ pupil attends the Polyglot Conference in Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki was the host city for 2016’s annual World Polyglot Conference, where Polyglots from across the globe congregated in one place to attend lectures and talks. Callum Rogan from Year 13 attended this conference and he was able to meet new and interesting people with similar interests.

"Γεια σας. Δεν μιλάω ελληνικά αλλά μαθαίνω

These are just some of the phrases that I learnt during my stay in Thessaloniki (Θεσσαλονικη) in October. While I was at the conference, I of course used my French and Spanish as much as possible and alongside this, I also spent lots of time speaking and improving my Brazilian Portuguese with native speakers. It was a fantastic opportunity to do so because it can be difficult to find speakers in Ireland. I practised my basic Russian and basic Mandarin Chinese with native speakers and fellow learners. From this, I was able to improve with tips, tricks and friendly advice. I took accelerated Greek lessons each day at the conference, where I was able to learn not just helpful words and phrases but also the letters and phonetics of the Greek Alphabet. Thanks to this, I can now attempt to pronounce Greek words more accurately as they are seen in the script.

The talks themselves covered every possible angle to do with language learning, from the history of certain languages, cultures and people to a not so simple discussion about Russian grammatical case or perhaps explanations about Korean Hangeul. During my stay in Greece, I was able to meet and network with a wide range of people from around the world including lecturers at Greek universities and representatives from major companies such as Babbel and Michel Thomas. Not only this, but I was able to make friends with people who share a similar interest to me from a wide range of countries across the globe.

Πέρασα υπέροχα!"