UAT Student Wins Arizona Japanese Speech Contest

For the second year in a row, University of Advancing Technology (UAT) student David Lin has won grand prize in his category at the Arizona Japanese Speech Contest. To win, Lin delivered a speech that he composed himself on the inspiration behind learning Japanese.

Lin and other competitors, including two others students from UAT, were challenged in four skill categories --labeled A, B, C and D -- each based on each competitor's level of Japanese language education. Lin competed in and won the C category. UAT students Lauren Walls and Matthew Williams competed in the B category. In 2006, David Lin and fellow UAT students Ian Church and Lonnie Mann took first, second and third place in the B category for second-semester Japanese students.

Lin, a senior studying Software Engineering, competed against 51 other contestants presenting monologues entirely in Japanese. Participants were free to choose their speech topics.

After watching Lin deliver his speech, Associate Professor Kumiko Gahan, Lin's Japanese language instructor at UAT, was enthusiastic about his performance in the contest. "I watched most of the winners' speeches and I listened, and David Lin's speech just stood out so well, not only because of the fluency of the language he spoke, but also his great emotion, body language and gesture. And overall, his performance was just great," she said.

Lin received a roundtrip ticket to Japan and a weeklong railway pass good throughout the country for being the grand prize winner of category C.

According to Lin, his win was a result of hard work. "We obviously had to write our speech first in English and translate it into Japanese, and submit them and it's a lot of practice," he said.

Lin plans on returning to Japan but not to redeem his prize. Instead, he will be working as a technical translator in computer graphics where he has a job lined up after graduation with a Tokyo-based company.

Next year's competition will take place at UAT with an expected 150 students, as well as their family and friends, in attendance.

About UAT: The University of Advancing Technology is a unique, private college that serves its student body by fostering knowledge creation and academic excellence in an environment that embraces the young technophiles of the world. With three centers of research and a suite of technology-centered undergraduate and graduate degrees, the University is a recognized leader in technology education.

For more information, please visit: http://www.uat.edu

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