Game Rules
The coordinator will read out the WORD that the speller has to spell.
Speller can ask these informations from the coordinator before they spell:
-the definition of the word
-the origin of the word (Latin, Greek, German, etc)
-the alternate pronunciation of the word (if applicable)
-an example of the word in a sentence
Incredibly tough
Participants read the specific word loud, and then start SPELLING.
But believe or not, the words for these high school participants are extremely difficult. I presume it could be a challenge even if an expert of certain domain who knows everything in that domain. It is because the words covers from Biological diseases(Meningitis), intercultural cultural symbolism (Tanha), musical instrument (Balalaika), not to mention they originated from Russian, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, which varies the word formation and thus making spelling even TOUGHER.
Medical - Meningitis
Meningitis (腦膜炎)
Definition: Inflammation of brain and spinal cord membranes, typically caused by an infection
The pronunciation is like manget-gaince just by hearing , but if you using way of English to spell, you can hardly get it right. itis is a Latin & Greek suffix , indicating inflammation of a specified part:, such as mastitis (乳腺炎) ,vulvitis (外陰炎)
German - Waterweir
Waterweir (退水堰)
Definition: a navigable canal is a slatted gate on each canal level or pound, to remove excess water
It may sound like (Wastewere) at the beginning, but as the answer unveiled it is actually a English+German
"waste" is a derivative from the Latin word vāstus. "Weir" comes from the Old English word wer, to dam up. Wer in turns come from the German word Wehr. So actually its "waste"(Latin) + "weir"(German)
A challenge of cultural knowledge.
Japanese - Katana
It surprised me the word Katana(刀) , such a short & simple structure word appeared when it came to the last few rounds.
Definition: traditionally made Japanese swordsThe coordinator actually pronounce it wrongly. He pronounced as /kɑːtæŋnɑː/ which sounds like Ka-tan-na, rather than Katana.
Sentence: "Katana, is an essential equipment for a Samurai in Japanese."
If the coordinator doesn't make a sentense, I wouldn't have known that he was saying the word "Katana"
Challenge yourself
If you want to challenge yourself, you may test how much you know about these words:
Keest, Dreidel, Scherco, Pizzicato, Vaquero, Prabhu (India), Intaglio, Ceitgeber (German), Tanha (Sanskrit Buddhism) Philhellenism, Nenuphar, Tokamak, Anschluss, Capacititance, Kielbasa, Jacamar, Fatoccini, Tchotchke (Polish)
Blow off my head - Is it a Russian word?
"Tokamak" is the word for this afro hair Speller 126 to spell.
He asked the coordinator: "Is it a Russian word?", thought the judge didn't hear it. He asked again.Long silence in the hall.
That's because spellers can only request the judge to give words definition, origin, alternative pronunciation,etc. But they cannot ask closed-ended question like the one he 've asked.
Judge broke the dead air and said" You can ask me for the origin of the word."
Then he woke up and asked, felling insecure.
"Yes, the word is from Russian." Judge said sarcastically.
Speller 126 smiled.Laughter burst out in the hall.
The judge replied "No, we cannot give you the spelling." She looked embarrassed and innocent in her face. All the people can't help to be amused and like her cuteness.
He had this habit of writing on hand when spelling. I think that's one of the tricks that he do when he spells. His brain is like a enormous database consisted of cross-cultural understanding, advanced medical knowledge and wide range vocabularies. He must be a wide reader in order to generate all these combinations based on deep knowledge in suffix and prefix of Latin & Greek, Vowels and diphthong of English. He hit the ground!
Sympatric ( I thought it was St.Patrick as St.Pat's day just passed few days ago.)
Forficiform
Nimbostratus
Palijgenesis
Indiacredible! Do I spell correctly?
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