Frequently Asked Questions
- I have sent the entry form to your e-mail address. Will I get a confirmation e-mail about my registration?
Yes, we always confirm new entries. If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail in a few days please contact us at balla.kinga@librabooks.hu.
- I want to enter the contest alone, not as part of a team. Is this possible?
Yes, it is. In this case please indicate on the entry form that you wish to compete in a team of one.
- I am competing in a team of one. Do I have to choose a pseudonym?
Yes, you need to choose a pseudonym we can use in our evaluation chart and on our website/Facebook page if we decide to publish your composition.
- I am competing in a team of two. Do we need to provide two e-mail addresses?
No, you do not. We ask teams of two and three to provide one working e-mail address we can use to communicate with them. If you give more than one address on the entry form the organizers will choose one to send messages to.
- I want to compete both in a team and individually. Is this a possibility?
This is only possible if you decide to enter the contest both in English and in German – in this case, please indicate on the entry form that you are entering in both languages. If you wish to compete in only one language, please decide whether you want to write alone or in a team.
- I speak both English and German well. Can I enter in both categories?
Yes, you can enter in both English and German, provided that you have a steady knowledge of both (minimum level B1). Please indicate the number of languages you wish to use in the contest on the entry form.
- I entered the contest both in English and in German. Will I get the same stories in the two languages?
No, the unfinished stories will be different in the two languages. This means that if you entered the contest in both English and German you have to be twice as creative!
- When is the registration deadline?
We accept entry forms until 31 October 2017, which date also marks the end of the first round.
- Where can I find the monthly tasks and the evaluation chart?
Stories waiting to be finished will be posted on our website, www.nyelvkonyvbolt.hu/en, at the beginning of each month, under the "Competitions" heading. You will also find the current deadline and updated evaluation chart with the teams' pseudonyms and positions on our scale.
- I completed the task I found on your website and I sent it to your e-mail address. Does this mean I entered the contest automatically?
We ask you to fill in our entry form before submitting your writing, which makes it easier for us to document the entries we receive. However, if you sent your composition first, make sure you attach the completed entry form too as soon as possible.
PLEASE NOTE that we confirm the reception of every entry form and submission! If you fail to receive a confirmation e-mail from us in a few days' time please contact us at balla.kinga@librabooks.hu!
- Our team came up with two different stories for the same task. Can we submit both compositions?
Unfortunately, you cannot. We ask every team to submit one story per task, except when you compete both in English and in German (in this case, teams will have to finish two different stories). If a team submits more than one story in the same language in the same round, we will evaluate the story we received first.
- We completed the story, can we send it to you by post?
We ask every entrant to submit their stories via e-mail, so that we can send a confirmation message more easily. Please submit your stories to verseny@librabooks.hu.
- I submitted my story to the given e-mail address. Will I get a confirmation e-mail about you receiving it?
Yes, we confirm every submission after we received it! If a few days pass after your submission without a confirmation e-mail from us, please contact us at balla.kinga@librabooks.hu. If we do not confirm the reception of your story it is possible that your message remained unnoticed or bounced back. Remember, if your story reaches us too late, you are risking disqualification from the final round!
- I am a teacher and I want my students to enter your competition. To what extent is it acceptable for teachers to help students when they are preparing for each round?
We consider a teacher's help valuable and useful when its aim is to help students notice linguistic mistakes in their texts, to help them create a coherent composition and to develop their writing skills. Our contest wishes to advertise that connecting language learning and creativity can be an exceptionally useful tool in teaching foreign languages.However, professional help including drafting the story for the students, writing full sentences/paragraphs for them, forcing the usage of grammar structures which are too complicated for the linguistic level of the students, etc., are frowned upon and we ask every teacher to avoid these practices.
If you are a teacher wishing to assists your students in preparing for this competition please read our guidelines and ideas for developing creative writing skills here.
- I saw in the evaluation chart that my composition got rather low marks. Can I ask for a detailed individual feedback?
Unfortunately, we are unable to give individual feedback about submissions. The evaluation chart will list marks according to different criteria, thus trying to give a basis for the final mark. We are unable to deal with individual complaints after the rounds.
- Is the final going to take place in a designated location? Do I have to travel somewhere in order to participate?
No, the final will be conducted in an electronic format just like the preceding rounds. The only significant difference will be a tight deadline: after receiving the last task, teams will only have a few hours to finish their stories. We are expecting to publish the exact date and time of the final at the beginning of 2018. The list of teams who qualified for the final will be published after Round 5, in February.
We confirm every submitted story once we received it via e-mail. If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail from us in a few days after submitting your composition, please contact us at balla.kinga@librabooks.hu!