Trinity's love of language earns chance to embrace French culture

Whanganui High School student Trinity Taylor-Moore is chasing her dreams of immersing herself into French culture with the help of a $4000 scholarship .

The Year 12 student has always had a passion for learning new languages having taken French as a subject since Year 9.

This also sparked her interest in wanting to travel the world and embark on an international exchange while at high school.

"I hear the stories from my parents and I'm inspired by the world that's out there and I want to go and see it," she said.

Her French teacher, Lorna Smith encouraged her at the end of last year to take part in the Education Perfect Languages Championships where she would have to compete against students from across New Zealand.

"Trinity is a phenomenal student, she's learned so much and I want to influence students there is more to life than just what's in New Zealand, I want them to go out and see the world."

Trinity competed in the online platform answering a number of questions and translations in French in her own time.

Gaining the top elite certificate, Trinity was invited to apply for an NZIIU Student Exchange Scholarship valued between $1000 and $5000.

She was one of the first 50 to be accepted into the scholarship process and from there she was selected as one out of 10 to sit through several interviews via Skype explaining why she should be chosen.

From there the final five were selected and Trinity came out on top taking home $4000 to put towards her exchange.

London born, Trinity has travelled to France a few times before but said she was too young to remember her experience.

She said she would love to go to the south of France so she can visit Italy as well.

She will also be able to use her knowledge of speaking a little German, Greek and Italian to her advantage.

It is also the food, the culture and of course the language that made her fall in love with the country and she said the reason why she has worked hard at becoming almost fluent in French.

The 15-year-old departs at the end of August for a six-month exchange and said she is very excited.

She will be living with a host family and attending a local French school where Smith said she will be fully immersed in the culture and her French will no doubt become "top-notch".

"It is very different experiencing travelling to being there immersed in a school so you have to be prepared to be immersed," Smith said.

Lucy Drake
Whanganui Chronicle 8/2/20