On this week’s edition of the Joy Beat, the All Things Considered team found the perfect guest. We love to have on local experts and future leaders to celebrate their accomplishments, but what’s especially awesome about this guest is that he’s just 10 years old.
Meet Tanoshi Inomata, a fourth grader who just won the Boston spelling bee and will be heading to Washington, D.C., for the national spelling bee in May. Tanoshi and his parents, Hiromi and Chikao, joined All Things Considered host Arun Rath to spell out his victory.
Arun Rath: Tanoshi, you must have studied very hard for this. Tell us how you felt when you realized you were the winner.
Tanoshi Inomata: I was surprised that I was the big champion because even though I practice a lot every day, I never thought I could. Because, first of all, there are like 4,000 words on the list. There are three levels of words on the list: level one is easy, level two is intermediate and level three is hard. I thought I couldn’t win because, on level three, there were four language origins with no rules to spell for them.
Rath: Wow. For level three, do you remember what the last word that you won on was?
Tanoshi: My championship word was ‘ancho.’
Rath: How do you spell that?
Tanoshi: You spell it A-N-C-H-O.
Rath: I have no idea what that means.
Tanoshi: It means a dried mixture of poblano chili peppers.
Rath: Oh, right! That’s actually something that I just learned today. So when you spelled that out, did you feel confident that you had the spelling right? What was your sense of it?
Tanoshi: I was pretty confident because even though when I first practiced, I got it wrong. But then I started practicing it and I got it right.
Rath: That’s brilliant. Congratulations!
Tanoshi: Thank you.
Rath: I didn’t realize this, but apparently, only one other person from Massachusetts has won the national spelling bee. That was over 80 years ago. How do you feel about it?
Tanoshi: I feel like now I want to win the national spelling bee and show off to everyone.
Rath: Are you feeling confident?
Tanoshi: Yeah. Now I’m practicing two times a day. I’m practicing in the morning every weekday with Mr. Noll, the school librarian at the Winship School. And after that, after school with my mom every day, even on the weekends.
Rath: Tanoshi, I’m curious, what’s a practice session like for spelling? Do you just run through lists of words?
Tanoshi: Yeah. The first time I practiced with my mom, I just went through the whole list of words, and during the practice, I memorized the words that I missed.
Rath: And Hiromi, you helped him out with those practice sessions later in the day?
Hiromi: Yeah, I studied with him every evening. It’s not easy for a fourth-grade boy to study alone every day. I think that coming soon, he’ll be more independent and study on his own. After that, I’m sure I’ll miss studying with him.
Tanoshi: Me, too!
Rath: It sounds like you have a good time together. That’s awesome! And I can only imagine how proud you must be.
Tanoshi: I also made an art piece. I made it by cutting and pasting the cutout from my face of the spelling bee last year.
Rath: Was that to psych yourself up to win?
Tanoshi: Yeah.
Rath: That’s awesome. Well, it worked! Are you gonna do that also for D.C.?
Tanoshi: Yeah. And I’m going to bring this one to D.C. also.
Rath: So you’ll be heading to Washington in May. Are you going to be practicing every day between now and then?
Tanoshi: Yeah.
Rath: Do you have a favorite word to spell?
Tanoshi: I like to spell long words. For example, tintinnabulary.
Rath: Tintinnabulary has to do with a ringing of bells?
Tanoshi: Yeah.
Rath: Can you spell that out for me, if you don’t mind showing off?
Tanoshi: T-I-N-T-I-N-N-A-B-U-L-A-R-Y. Tintinnabulary.
Rath: Brilliant. We’re so happy that you’re going to nationals and representing us. Good luck! We can’t wait to hear how it goes.
Tanoshi: Oh, actually, I have one more thing. We listen to WGBH all the time in our car. It’s because we like the classical music.
