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Students from twenty countries came together at the Find Your Czech event!

On Thursday 24 October, the annual event called Find Your Czech! took place in the UJOP Voršilská centre in Prague. Its aim was to help foreigners learning Czech to make contacts with Czechs who want to learn or practice a foreign language with a native speaker in return.

This year, almost seventy students from eighteen countries gathered in the former chapel of the Arnost of Pardubice Dormitory in Voršilská Street. This event brought together even some less common nationalities from countries such as the Philippines, Iran and Israel.

Marie Poláčková, a representative of the organizers from UJOP, warmly welcomed everyone with a small language exercise and explained to the students how they were supposed to meet. On arrival, students were given cards with a colour code according to their preferred language and after the welcoming speech they could start looking for their conversation partners. The Czechs asked the foreign students, in the language they wanted to practice, "What colour are you?" The foreigners answered in Czech with the name of the assigned color.

After a moment of organized chaos, the students divided into fourteen language groups and began to have conversations. Some groups had more heated discussions, others were slower in getting started. However, the teachers present, Nikola Popperová and Karolína Pavlíková, with other organizers, helped them every time the conversation got stuck. At the end of this special event, the participants exchanged contacts with each other so that they could maintain their new acquaintances and further improve their language.

The students were reluctant to leave, but eventually left the event smiling and wishing that it would be repeated next year. The whole afternoon ended with a success and fulfilled the objective of bringing dozens of people from different countries together in an international setting to improve each other's language skills. We hope that their meetings will continue in the future as well.