On Monday 3rd July, five students travelled to Cambridge University to participate in the National Translation Bee Final, following their success in the regional finals earlier in the year.
The students were competing in French, German and Spanish, having reached the final 57 of 13,000 entries. All the students showcased their amazing pronunciation and memory skills, producing accurate and speedy translations which resulted in fantastic results, with Harpriya winning in French, Gabriella achieving fourth place in Spanish and Sophie fourth place in German. Lia and Felicity also did incredibly well, placing just shy of the top four.
The National Translation Bee was started by a team including ONL Sarah Schechter, with the aim to encourage students to practise and improve a range of skills, including vocabulary, pronunciation, memory, verb conjugation, tenses and sentence formation, which are vital in preparing to study languages at IGCSE level and beyond.
Overall winner in French, Harpriya, explained how she only started learning French in Year 7 and has developed a real love of the language over the last two years. To prepare for the Translation Bee, students have to learn a specific set of verbs and conjugation into various tenses, along with an array of vocabulary and accurate pronunciation. The competition began much earlier in the year, with the initial stages taking place in individual classes, then across the school, before the Regional and then National Finals. During the competition, students have one minute to correctly translate as many sentences as possible, which Harpriya achieved at amazing speed!
Harpriya really enjoyed the whole experience, which included a guided tour of some of the Universities’ notable colleges including Homerton and Gonville and Caius by Cambridge Alumna, Ms Mardell. She was particularly fascinated that the final took place in the hall where Professor Stephen Hawking had his 60th birthday party! She hopes to compete again next year in Spanish.
Many congratulations to Harpriya, Gabriella, Sophie, Lia and Felicity on your incredible success!
