Can you write down a Chinese word being read to you? It can be difficult, e     when the word is not included in most dictionaries.
Lu Jialei, 14, from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, w      the CCTV Chinese Character (汉字) Spelling Contest on Oct 18, 2013.
About 160 people competed. The host read a word to the contestant (参赛选手), explained its meaning and gave sample sentences. The contestant was required to write d     the word.
Winning the contest was a “surprise” to Lu Jialei. “I am not the smartest one,” she said. “But I pay a    to details.”
To prepare for the contest, she and her teammates studied the Modern Chinese Dictionary for 10 days. There are more than 56,000 entries (词条) i     characters, words and phrases in it.
She also has a secret weapon (武器). She studied h    Chinese characters were structured (构成).
In the final, judges gave her the word wanluan and said it means graceful and pretty.“I’ve never h      of that word!” said Lu. But she made a good guess. “Characters meaning pretty often have ‘女’ in it, w     many characters pronouncing luan have ‘亦’. So I wrote it down: ‘婉娈’,” she said.
This secret weapon came from her good r    habits.
“When others pay attention to the plot of a story, she looks at how writers use words and sentences to express themselves,” said Su Yunsheng, Lu’s Chinese teacher.
Su is happy to see students like Lu find the b      of Chinese language.“Learning to write Chinese characters is an important part of inheriting (传承) culture,” said Su.