This Week @ Your Library [Mar 5-12]

I was born and raised in London, where I was always surrounded by languages. I have Greek heritage, and that was the first language that I learned apart from my native English. I studied French, German and later Spanish at school, and from the age of 14 I started learning other languages independently as well, such as Dutch, Afrikaans, Italian, Catalan, and Hebrew. I studied German and Russian as an undergraduate at Oxford University, where I also did a module in Yiddish literature, and after graduating I spent a year in Budapest studying Hungarian and Serbian.

I regularly attend all major polyglot community events, such as the , the first and second in Budapest and Novi Sad. I was on the organisation committee for the third international Polyglot Conference, in October 2015, and am one of the organisers for in October 2016.

In conjunction with I run a series of aimed at all language learners, which take place monthly in locations across the world.

Qualifications

• Britain’s most multilingual student – February, 2012
• BA Oxon German and Ab Initio Russian, with distinction in spoken German and Russian – June, 2014