Japan spelling bee winner advances in US contest

Hanna Yoshida, winner of this year’s Japan Times Bee, clinched her spot in the next level of oral spelling at the US spelling bee on Tuesday.

Yoshida correctly spelled “zymoscope”, sending the 14-year-old into the second stage of the preliminary session of the Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor outside Washington.

After her word was read, the student of K International School Tokyo asked for the language of origin of the word, which, according to the moderator, came from originally Greek parts that moved into Latin.

Yoshida then asked to hear it used in a sentence. The moderator offered: “The brewer used a zymoscope to assess the yeast varieties.” Taking a breath, she proceeded to spell her word correctly, to exuberant cheers from the audience.

Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the final authority of spelling consulted for the Bee, says the word means “an apparatus for determining the fermenting power of yeast by measuring the amount of carbon dioxide evolved from a given quantity of sugar”.

After leaving the stage, Yoshida said: “I didn’t know the definition to be honest,” though the word was familiar to her.

“I felt really nervous, but really I knew that I can’t go back,” she said. “So I just had to do the best I can.”

If Yoshida succeeds in the next round in the US contest and her written exam score is high enough, she will move on to the final round slated for today.

The contestants’ passion for the Bee shows in the care they each take in identifying their words before they begin to spell. Most, like Yoshida, asked for word origins, definitions and example sentences, and some can even identify the foreign roots of words, which they are allowed to ask as a point of clarification.

Looking forward to her chance in the next round, Yoshida said, “I feel nervous but excited at the same time. I will just do my best.”

This year the Bee drew a record 516 contestants from all 50 US states and eight other countries including Ghana, Italy, Jamaica and South Korea. The number is up from 291 last year.