Nathaniel Carter has won a return ticket to Japan as first prize in the 2016 Tertiary Japanese Language Speech Contest, run by Japanese Studies Aotearoa New Zealand (JSANZ).
Nate is studying Japanese and Māori concurrently with his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery through our Diploma in Languages programme.
He was encouraged by his tutor Reiko Kondo to enter the contest, in which he had to write and present a speech of four and a half to five minutes and answer two questions in Japanese.
Nate wrote his speech about how learning Japanese has been a significant source of support to him during the hardships he has faced in his life, and that this support was a major factor in overcoming these hardships to successfully enter medical school.
In his speech he said that “Despite never having been to Japan, I cannot imagine a future without Japanese, and will continue learning it no matter what.”
Now, thanks to the speech contest, he will get the opportunity to visit Japan for the first time.
Entries to the contest need to be digitally video-recorded in front of an audience of at least ten people, so Nate presented his speech and answered the questions in front of his JAPANESE 331 class.
Nate is excited to have won the contest, and is hoping to use his ticket to Japan over the summer break. He is looking forward to using his knowledge of the language to navigate Japan.
He says that his knowledge of Japanese and Māori will be helpful in a future career in hospitals, and is hoping for a placement in Japan in his sixth year.
The JSANZ speech contest has been running for three years, and last year Simon Hseih, a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Commerce student, placed second with his speech about the experience of migrating from the mega-city of Shanghai to the comparatively small town of Tauranga.
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