Nina

Nina has been studying Mandarin Chinese through GaVS over the last three years. Although a bilingual speaker in Spanish and English, she was initially intimidated by the complexity of Chinese characters and tonal pronunciation. With time, however, she fell in love with the way characters are built up from radicals, such as a fire mountain becoming a volcano. Nina has presented in Mandarin at the school’s International Fair, attended Chinese cultural events such as indigo dyeing, and cooked traditional dishes such as moon cakes and dumplings. She recently earned second place for high school level students in the Georgia Chinese Language Educators (GCLE) Poetry Declamation Contest.

Nina is currently a student of the STEM Magnet program at Wheeler High School, while pursuing her 3rd year of Mandarin. She is an avid soccer player with the school team while also a member of the National Art Honor Society, Beta Club, Magnet Advisory Board, Drafting Club, Speech and Debate, as well as the communications officer for the Drone Club.

Nina is looking forward to making use of her growing Chinese skills by attending an immersion program in Taiwan this summer!