Ok, so after my last blog post, you’ve decided you want to sign up for an Esperanto conference, great!  But you looked at the website and saw aliĝilo, kotiztabelo, memzorgantejo and landkategorio.  Ok, you may understand those words, but what do they mean in context?  Well, Transparent Language to the rescue!  To sign up, you’ll have to find the registration form (aliĝilo, literally: joining tool).  You fill out basic contact information and then you have some decisions to make.

How long do you want to stay?  How much luxury do you want in your sleeping arrangements?  Do you want to eat in the cafeteria or prepare your own food?  Want to contribute to the program as in give a lecture or help out in some other way, like serving tea in the gufujo?  How will you pay?  Aaaah, so many questions!  But, if you’re like most Americans, you love options, but more than that, you like to be informed about the options you have, so let’s get started.

How long do you want to stay?  Note that the program cost is often the same no matter how long you stay.  Also, the cost for staying overnight with food is often the same for say 3-5 days as for the “flat rate” of the entire week to encourage people to stay longer.  So, paying for the program also brings up these landkategoriojn.  Let’s look at an example of a kotiztabelo from the Junulara E-Semajno:

PROGRAMKOTIZO

La kotizo dependas de via aĝo kaj loĝlando, tamen ne dependas de longeco de via partopreno en la aranĝo. [The cost depends on your age and country of residence, however it does not depend on the length of your participation in the event.]

Aĝo	A-lando	B-lando	C-lando
< 18	35 €	45 €	60 €
18 – 30	40 €	50 €	65 €
> 30	45 €	55 €	70 €

Land-kategorioj:

• A – Albanio, Bjelorusio, Bosnio-Hercegovino, Bulgario, Kroatio, Makedonio, Malto, Moldavio, Montenegro, Portugalio, Rumanio, Serbio, Ukrainio, ĉiuj landoj de la Rusa Federacio, Azio, Afriko, Amerikoj kaj Aŭstralio.
• B – Ĉeĥio, Estonio, Grekio, Hispanio, Hungario, Latvio, Litovio, Pollando, Slovakio, Slovenio
• C – ĉiuj aliaj

It’s been quite a tradition of Esperanto meetings to encourage participation of ali-land-anoj (foreigners, literally: other-country-members) by making prices lower for people who either have to travel quite a distance (like from the USA to Europe) or those living in poorer countries like from Eastern Europe.  Also, the older you are, the more likely you will have more money, thus the more expensive the conference will be for you.

How much luxury do you need?  You basically have two options: stay in the youth hostel (junul-ar-gast-ejo, literally: youth-group-guest-place) or stay in a common area and sleep on the hard floor with your own sleeping bag (amas-loĝ-ejo, literally: mass-lodging-place).  Mass lodging can make it possible for people with very little money, but also little comfort requirements to attend a large Esperanto conference at a very affordable price.  I’ve heard of Russian students who hitchhike for a week in the winter (!!) to attend an Esperanto conference in Germany.

In the next blog post in this series, I’ll answer the remaining burning questions, so continue reading!