KEY POINTS:
A 13-year-old New Zealander will embark on the biggest challenge of her life when she competes in the American national spelling bee in Washington DC.
Kate Weir, a Year 9 student at Linwood College in Christchurch, gained a place at the tournament after winning the New Zealand spelling bee in April, with the word "vendetta".
Kate and her mother Paula arrived in Washington on Sunday and have spent two days sightseeing before the competition this morning (NZT).
Kate said the trip, which was mainly funded by the Listener magazine, had been fun so far.
She had been studying the differences between New Zealand and American spellings, and getting used to the accents. "Most of the people haven't got too extreme an accent, so you can understand them, but with some of the words it might pose a bit of a problem."
New Zealand spelling bee organiser Janet Lucas, who is also in Washington, said Kate was the third New Zealander to take part in the American national spelling bee, which was the biggest yet with 139 boys and 147 girl spellers.
"The competition begins tomorrow morning, with a multi-choice test of 25 words. Then they each get one oral word on the stage, and about a third go on to round two," Ms Lucas said.
It was difficult to get into the second round, and no New Zealander had achieved that so far.
But it was a wonderful opportunity for a 13-year-old to compete in what Ms Lucas described as "the Olympics of spelling", as well as meet and mingle with the other spellers.
Most of the contestants were American or Canadian, and there were none from Australia or Britain.
Kate said she wasn't nervous about the tournament, and would do her best. She also had some advice for less gifted spellers: "Just read some more advanced stuff than you're used to, because you pick up words and what they mean by reading them in context. If you read often enough you'll pick up more words."
- NZPA
