Heya and welcome on the forums.
I'm sure you will meet many interesting people both here and at the convention.
If you are looking for an active community I am sorry to say that activity on these boards tend to drop through the year and get more active around events.
Things like:
- Launch of the website
- Updates on important information (new date, announce Guest of Honor, etc)
- Registration for next year
- And mostly the 2 months prior the convention
Do not fret, their are active members here and they check things regularly.
I just want to make sure you know that if you really want to meet a lot of people, you have to be patient till one of the above happens.
Speaking just English will do fine. A lot of Germans and German speaking people attend EF, but really the most of them can speak English also.
About terminology have a brief look at this:
http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/FursonaIn short if you talk about fursona we talk about an 'avatar' that is your (animal) character.
This character can have a drawing or multiple drawings and when you use it on the boards we call it a profile picture.
Having a fursona is not a must (in my opinion) persee.
More importantly, is when you have one is that you identify yourself with. Don't just pick one because it's cool; explorer and see what sticks with you.
If you feel 'this cat character' you have been drawing, writing about or have build up from all kinds of sources is someone you feel closely related by.
Then in my book you have a well defined fursona and furries will like to talk to you about them just because they see things that spark their interest.
Above is my personal look on fursonas. I think it could spark an interesting discussion which I'm not going to start here.
If you want more information about EF.
Suggest the following:
Or hang around here:
IRC chat on furnet - Which also have topics about EF and other furry conventionsSee you around.