Higley teen in China for language competition

Oct. 24—In just four years, Higley High School senior Mitsu Navarro has mastered one of the world's most difficult languages and is now in China showing off his Mandarin proficiency.

The 18-year-old Gilbert teen is in China, going head-to-head against peers from about 100 countries in the 16th Chinese Bridge Chinese Proficiency Competition for Secondary School Students.

A total 110 high school students from around the world ranging from sophomores to seniors are participating in the competition likened to an Olympics-style event.

"I speak four languages and the common route (in school) is to take Spanish," said Mitsu, who left for China on Oct. 14. "I already speak Spanish and my family and I decided that it would be better that I learn something new.

"China has a good economy and knowing the language is most important. It's the most spoken language in the world and would help me down the road."

Mandarin is largely spoken in China, Taiwan and Singapore and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Mitsu said that he speaks Spanish daily at home with his dad, Alejandro Navarro, who is Mexican. The teen also noted that he grew up in El Paso, Texas, and was surrounded by Spanish speakers.

He and his family moved to Gilbert four years ago.

He also can hold his own in conversational Japanese as his mother, Mari Navarro, is a native Japanese speaker.

Last year Mitsu earned the Arizona Seal of Biliteracy in Mandarin and in Spanish. The state program recognizes high school students who achieve a high level of proficiency in speaking, reading and writing in one or more languages in addition to English.

Mitsu enrolled in the Mandarin immersion program in his freshman year at Hamilton High School in Chandler and continued with his language learning for the next three years at Higley High.

"It's is very difficult," he said of learning Mandarin. "There're four different tones for each word and each one means something different so I have to really focus on that pronunciation, and focus on so many characters."

Although he speaks three other languages, Mitsu said he learned them as a toddler and considers Mandarin his "first real language."

China's Center for Language Education and Cooperation uses the competition as a platform to promote the Chinese language and culture.

The educational or cultural offices of Chinese Embassies or Confucius Institutes organize the overseas preliminary competitions, select and recommend contestants to attend the semi-finals held in China.

Criteria for the participants include that they do not have Chinese citizenship, their first language is not Chinese and neither parent can be native speakers of Chinese.

Mitsu said he trusted in his preparation and knew that if he did everything right he would have a chance to win the regional competition.

He was selected from among 25 students by the Los Angeles Chinese Consulate General to represent it in China. Two other U.S. students also are going to China for the competition, representing the San Francisco and the New York consulates.

"I found out that I was going to China around May or June," Mitsu said. "It's been five months of preparation."

The contestants will be judged on a two-minute speech, a three-minute talent show and a computer test.

Mitsu said he wrote his speech a month and a half ago and practiced it every day to improve his fluency and pronunciation.

The theme of his speech is, "one world, one family" — how everyone is connected through shared problems such as poverty, hunger, educational problems and financial issues.

"I talk about ways to combat these issues and come together as one family, one world to rise up and face the issues together," Mitsu said.

For the talent portion, Mitsu and his Mandarin language teacher, Panna Leatherby, sat down to brainstorm and picked a song from Butterfly Lovers, a tragic folktale set in ancient China. The love story is often compared with Romeo and Juliet.

Mitsu, who plays the piano, learned to sing the entire song from memory.

For the computer test, the contestants will be tested in Mandarin on how much they know of China's history and culture.

Mitsu also read books on Chinese culture and history and listened to Chinese songs "trying to enrich myself in as much Mandarin as possible."

The California-born teen has never been to China before and is making the trip solo. China Bridges is paying for each competitor's flight and lodging.

Mitsu credited Leatherby for getting him to where he is.

"My teacher pushes us to be as involved in Mandarin as possible," he said. "She is very amazing and helped us all, not just me but everyone in my class.

"She always wants us to improve."

Leatherby, who is originally from Baoji, China, has been teaching Mandarin to middle- and high-school students in Higley Unified School District for eight years.

Mitsu is the third student she's taught who's gone on to compete in China. Her other two students came from an Iowa high school that she taught at before relocating to Arizona in 2015.

Leatherby said many of her current students began taking Mandarin in middle school and had a head start over Mitsu. HUSD has a pre-K-12 Mandarin Immersion Program.

But speaking three other languages at home gave Mitsu an advantage in grasping Mandarin, she said, adding that he's improved his Mandarin skills 50 to 80% from three years ago.

Leatherby said, "He is very resilient and very determined and that helped."

She said she was surprised when Navarro wanted to compete in the Chinese Bridge competition because he was not an active speaker in class. But she was fully on board to help him prepare for the regional.

"Any student who wants to improve themselves I help them," she said. "And he won."

Going into the China competition, Mitsu is facing contestants who have been studying Mandarin since preschool, Leatherby said.

"It's really a global platform," she said. "You see people from all backgrounds. Lots of people speak more than two languages."

Leatherby, who has two master's degrees, including one in Applied Linguistics, noted the importance of learning the culture along with the language.

"Culture is huge," she said. "Without culture, the language is isolated. It's like looking at a symbol with a picture."

This semester, Leatherby has 31 students in her class, the enrollment fluctuates year to year. Some students won't sign up as they're put off by the fact that Mandarin is challenging to learn, according to Leatherby, who added that teachers are there to guide and help students to be successful.

And one of those success stories is Mitsu. The teen, who carries a full load of advance placement classes and participates in extra curricular activities, said he intends to keep up with Mandarin after high school.

He has his eyes set on Stanford University, UCLA or University of Texas at Austin and hopes to major in mechanical engineering or aerospace engineering.

"It's a very important language for me," he said. "It could benefit me in the long run especially in a career in engineering."

According to experts, China is working on becoming a science and technology powerhouse.

"I think Higley's program is truly amazing," Mitsu said. "It has really done wonders for me and everyone who has gone through it.

"I think it's more not me speaking the language but what I learned about myself — certain things like work ethics and discipline. It's very challenging to learn a new language (but) I learned to be disciplined and focused and spend time on it and not just slack through it."

Mitsu expected to be home in Gilbert Oct. 31. People can vote for him at bridge.chinese.cn/s16/537.html through Oct. 30. To see why: youtu.be/8fq8V4g1c8E?si=YtJABL-qfENgoFEy