St Paul’s Collegiate School student Kathy Hastie has been awarded a scholarship that will contribute $4000 towards a three month language exchange to Spain.
Once her exams are over, Kathy will be on the first flight out to immerse herself in Spanish culture and language by attending a semester at a local school and enjoying Spanish Christmas festivities.
“I’ve never had a winter Christmas before, it will be really cool,” Kathy said.
The 17-year-old was selected for the scholarship following her success in the Language Perfect World Championships, an online language contest where each student has an account to track their progress and earn points by correctly translating between their chosen language and English.
Kathy placed twelfth in the world in the competition and scored 11802 points which secured her an elite award.
“Every time you answer the same question correctly two times you get a point. If you get one wrong you have to answer it three times to get the points,” she explained.
Those who were awarded a gold award or higher were entered into a draw from which 15 people were selected to apply for one of three scholarships. Kathy was one of those lucky people and one of the scholarship recipients.
Kathy started taking Spanish when she started at St Paul’s in Year 11 in 2015. She says she took up the language because of its popularity across the globe and because of the sound.
“I like the sound of it, I like the way it flows. It’s quite different to English in that way, that’s why it really appealed to me,” she said.
She practises speech with her classmates throughout the week and says YouTube tutorials help.
“I wouldn’t say that I am completely fluent but I can speak quite confidently, I’ll survive in Spain.”
