Why are Indian people so good at spelling bees?
Having instructed Indian flight students I have learned that the Indian educational system and culture focuses heavily on rote level memorization. My students had an amazing ability to memorize text books but lacked the ability to apply what they had memorized to real world situations and had real difficulty thinking "outside the box". Spelling bees being nothing more that an exercise in rote memorization would conceivably be easily mastered by Indian students. I would not be too concerned about winning spelling bees. As one takes a wider view of the complex subject of intelligence and intellect you will realize that everyone is intelligent in different ways. Everyone has a different set of core competences each useful in different circumstances.
Which languages are spelling bees the most frequent in?
I have only heard of spelling bees taking place in English.English has a spelling tradition that is particularly well-suited to that sort of thing.Other languages with occasionally tricky spellings tend to go for dictations instead, where one person reads out a text and participants try to write it down with all the words spelled correctly — rather than being asked to spell individual words.
What is the best way to study for a spelling bee?
I think the best way might be to learn the high frequency spelling patterns.for each phoneme in English. See my page on spelling patterns.I also recommend learning a phonemic spelling system such as IPA or Webster Dictionary notation. Once learned, you can spell most any word you can pronounce. However, it may not be very close to the “correct” spelling.*believe - IPA /bɪ’ li:v/ . Webster: bi’l’evThe traditional writing system can spell a 5 phoneme word such as /ˈsɪzərz/ over 10,000 different ways. sizzers would be a good guess, but the correct spelling is
Are there spelling bees in languages other than English?
The Russian language is more “written as pronounced + some rules + a few exceptions” kind of language, so it doesn’t make much sense.In an elementary school (grades 1–3), children write “диктант” (dictations): a teacher reads some text aloud, while students have to write it down. The results are graded. It is the most closest thing to a spelling bee contest I know of in Russia.In a middle school (from 4th grade) dictations end, and children start writing essays. As far as I can tell the major problems with essays are not misspellings, but where to put commas correctly, how to avoid run-on sentences, and how better convey your thoughts. Obviously the biggest problem is to have your own thoughts to begin with.So here you go: there is no practical reason to practice Russian spelling, if there is no problem with that in the first place. Spelling is easy due to rules of Russian language, almost direct correspondence between written characters and spoken sounds, the pronunciation rules, and a relatively small set of exceptions, which can be regular as well.PS: There is a well-known joke, where a supposedly non-Russian speaker complains about “illogical” Russian spelling using a certain set of words, where the speaker intentionally mispronounces sounds so it doesn’t match how they spell.PPS: The opposite is true too. If a person reads up on how to read Cyrillic letters (can be done in an evening), and starts to read aloud a text, where syllables marked up with stress marks (for children or foreign students), by reading every single character using its sound — it will sound weird, yet usually totally understandable. Adding a smattering of pronunciation rules on top of that will help a lot.
What would be the Chinese-language equivalent to a spelling bee?
This:http://m.bbc.com/news/blogs-chin...The ever-increasing reliance on technology means that many are forgetting how to write Chinese characters. I am glad that the school I work at teaches character-writing in detail, down to stroke order. My husband, whose native language is Spanish, is learning to recognise Traditional Chinese characters and is often amazed when I explain the morphology and etymology behind them.
I really need help with a spelling bee?
First of all, congrats on winning the regional. As for studying for the state spelling bee without a word list being made available, I would recommend you obtain the following materials, if you don't already have them: Merriam-Webster's A Dictionary of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Combining Forms." (this may or may not be available online) Merriam-Webster’s “Spell It” (available online) http://myspellit.com/ Nat’s Notes (available online) http://www.hexco.com/hexco/p/nnn.html Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary This is the traditional dictionary used by spelling bees. Unless Knights of Columbus has specified they are using a *different* dictionary, this is the one you would do well to study from. (If you don’t yet own a copy, it would be worth investing in one. Otherwise, see if your local library will loan a copy to you.) In addition, although this spelling bee is being sponsored by Knights of Columbus, I would recommend you read Scribb’s spelling tips: Scribb’s National Spelling Bee website http://spellingbee.com/study-tips These resources should provide you with all you need to prepare for state. In general, though, keep the following in mind: (1) Studying root words is essential. Rather than trying to memorize long word lists (with which you’ve not been provided anyway), it is a good idea to focus on learning how words are put together (especially how they begin and end) and why a word is spelled the way it is. Merriam-Webster's “A Dictionary of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Combining Forms" is an excellent resource for this. (2) To augment your primary preparations, each day randomly pick three to five words from the dictionary and practice spelling them—out loud is best. (3) Be prepared to spend an average of two hours daily studying and preparing for the spelling bee. The resources I've listed above will provide you with very good spelling plans and habits, as well as additional tips. Wishing the very best of luck to you.