Chinese Bridge is a competition where secondary school students from across the country prepare a two-minute speech in Mandarin and then depending on the category, must either complete a translation or produce an impromptu speech in Chinese.

The categories are not based on ability - but rather on how long the student has been studying Chinese - so I was entered into the Intermediate Plus category where I first delivered my speech, then answered the judges' questions on my speech, and then answered a scenario question - which was effectively a 1 minute impromptu speech, but I had to fulfil certain criteria and include certain topics.

The first heat was online, where several hundreds of students would compete. A couple weeks later, a select number of students would be chosen to go to the finals in London - which this year took place in UCL and SOAS. There were 12 competitors in my category who made it to the finals, but some categories had as little as 8 and some slightly more.

I entered this competition because I have a great passion for studying Mandarin and want to continue my studies in university - so this experience was great not only to immerse myself in the language and show off my ability, but also to meet people of a similar passion and goal!

The awards ceremony will be held in September, where I will again make my way down to London to celebrate!