I received the following question on my recent UIS posting: “I am interested in this event but am concerned my lack of foreign language knowledge would be a big detriment. What is your feeling on this as I have never been to any international events.”
It’s a good question and I thought worth replying to the lists in case others find it helpful for this and other international caving events. In short, English has become the international language. If a conference is described as “international” then you can be almost 100% certain that the official language of the meeting will be in English, or English plus the language of the host country. A quick check with the conference website or organizers will confirm this if you want absolute 100% certainty. As a result, most international participants will speak English to some degree. The effort to communicate with these cavers, even those whose English is not very good, is more than equally rewarded by your learning new perspectives, techniques, information, and stories you’ll share. Also, as you travel you’ll find nearly all airports, plus most major train stations, restaurants, etc., offer information in English too. George On Dec 8, 2014, at 6:11 PM, George Veni <gv...@nckri.org<mailto:gv...@nckri.org>> wrote: Dear Friends, Next year the International Union of Speleology (UIS) celebrates its 50th Anniversary and you are invited to the celebration! The celebration will held with the 23rd International Karstological School, a series of state-of-the-art lectures and field trips conducted annually by the Karst Research Institute in Postojna, Slovenia. Next year’s school will focus on the importance of exploration on cave and karst research. To register for the celebration and/or the school, and for more information, see the attached file. Both events will be held in the Kras, the region that gave “karst” its name. If you’ve never been there, this is a great reason to go visit a spectacular area. Contact the people listed in the attached file for more details, and please share this message with anyone who may be interested. George Veni Vice President of Administration International Union of Speleology ******************** George Veni, Ph.D. Executive Director National Cave and Karst Research Institute 400-1 Cascades Avenue Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220-6215 USA Office: 575-887-5517 Mobile: 210-863-5919 Fax: 575-887-5523 gv...@nckri.org<mailto:gv...@nckri.org> www.nckri.org<http://www.nckri.org/> <First circular_23rd International Karstological School.pdf>_______________________________________________ SWR mailing list s...@caver.net<mailto:s...@caver.net> http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swr _______________________________________________ This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET. Remember when you are replying to a message, you are replying to ALL on this list. This a default setting. If you want to reply to the individual sender then click reply, go delete the name out of the To: field and insert who you want to reply to. Of course, you have to know the email address of the person you are wanting to reply to.
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