REDLANDS College student Serena Yim is a finalist in a national competition that aimed to encourage and celebrate a love of learning languages.
Serena, of Birkdale, was one of about 20,000 students aged between four and 18 who entered the inaugural SBS National Languages Competition.
The students were asked to respond to the question, “What does learning another language mean to you?”.
Serena was one of eight finalists in the category for students aged between 13 and 18 years.
A Cantonese student at the Sacred Heart Chinese School in Mansfield, the 16-year-old started to learn Mandarin when she was five years old.
She said learning languages enabled her to better understand her culture.
While her parents were married in Australia, her grandparents travel between here and China and Serena communicates in Chinese with her extended family.
“I am really blessed to be able to express myself in fluent Chinese when I go and visit,” she said.
Appreciative of her family’s support in pursuing Chinese lessons, Serena said it took a lot of dedication and persistence, but she intended to continuing learning.
The languages competition was run by SBS in partnership with Community Languages Australia (CLA), an umbrella body for more than 1000 community language schools.
CLA’s executive director Stefan Romaniw said the initiative encouraged students, parents and the community to focus on the importance of learning a language.
“Community language schools are one of the many tools used to consolidate Australia’s identity as a truly multicultural society,” he said.
