The 26th BC Japanese Speech Contest was held at SFU on Saturday, March 1st, 2014. Students learning Japanese at universities and language schools presented their speeches in four categories: Beginners’, Intermediate, Advanced and Open.
There were ten contestants from UBC: Carmela de Torres, Yiming Hu, Hee yeon Kim, Ketty Zhang, Qi Shen, Yunsoo Cho, Nicholas Hoyte, Rebecca Schaeffer, Joy Xu, and Erika Sommerville. Six of our students won prizes in their respective categories.
The winners:
| Beginner Category | Advanced Category | Open Category | Best Effort |
| 1st: Ketty Zhang | 2nd: Rebecca Schaeffer | 1st: Erika Sommerville | Yiming Hu |
| 3rd: Carmela Torres | 3rd: Yunsoo Cho and Joy Xu |
Mr. Okada, the Consul General of Japan in Vancouver with Ketty Zhang
UBC Japanese teachers and students were there to support the contestants
Ketty Zhang, Carmela de Torres, Rebecca Schaeffer and Erika Sommerville
The 1st prize winners, Ketty and Erika, will go to the National Japanese Speech Contest of Canada on March 29th, 2014, at the Embassy of Japan in Canada, Ottawa. The Senseis from our Japanese Language Programme are all very proud of each student’s achievement!
