I had such a great time last year, that I'll be heading back to Bratislava, Slovakia for Polyglot Gathering 2018! Instead of talking about AI and language technology, I'll be going back to my roots as Japanologist, linguist, and language educator through an all-new talk just for the Gathering. 

With 『らくらくでペラペラよ!』: Japanese through onomatopoeia!", I'll be giving an introduction to a very special intersection of Japanese language and culture through its unusually expressive and useful onomatopoeia expressions. 

If you're a newcomer to Japanese
This talk will be a great way to get you introduced to the Japanese language's view of the world and the relationships of people and objects in it, culture, its phonology and pronunciation, and a little bit of hiragana and katakana. You don't need to come with prior knowledge but if you'd like to learn a little beforehand, I recommend checking out Tofugu's hiragana and katakana guides.

If you've already got some Japanese knowledge 
This talk will teach you some new phrases, how they're grouped so you can learn more, shades of nuance, and add more cultural context to how they're used both colloquially and in formal texts, like advertising.

Got some questions you'd like addressed in my talk? Want to suggest some of your favourite onomatopoeia to be included? Tweet me, message me via the Polyglot Gathering Telegram group, or contact me through this form to let me know!