On Wednesday 2 February, I took part in the Advanced round of the annual UK Linguistics Olympiad, a competition which requires participants to solve linguistic problems in unknown languages. As a student of French, Spanish and Latin, I thoroughly enjoyed participating in this competition as I was able to transfer my knowledge of grammar and pronunciation into the challenges of the competition. The questions covered a range of linguistic problems including recognising patterns in spelling changes and analysis of characters in a non-Roman alphabet, and in one question I was able to use my knowledge of compound words in Mandarin (which I had studied briefly in Enrichment) to guess the meanings of terms in an unknown language.
I found the Olympiad an exciting and challenging experience, and it was a great way to integrate all the skills that I have learnt through studying languages. I was very happy to learn that I received a Bronze award and look forward to participating next year.
Talia (Lower 6)
