Can you write down a Chinese word being read to you? It can be difficult, e    小题1: when the word is not included in most dictionaries.

Lu Jialei, 14, from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, w  小题2:    the CCTV Chinese Character (汉字) Spelling Contest on Oct 18, 2013.

About 160 people competed. The host read a word to the contestant (参赛选手), explained its meaning and gave sample sentences. The contestant was required to write d  小题3:   the word.

Winning the contest was a “surprise” to Lu Jialei. “I am not the smartest one,” she said. “But I pay a  小题4:  to details.”

To prepare for the contest, she and her teammates studied the Modern Chinese Dictionary for 10 days. There are more than 56,000 entries (词条) i  小题5:   characters, words and phrases in it.

She also has a secret weapon (武器). She studied h  小题6:  Chinese characters were structured (构成).

In the final, judges gave her the word wanluan and said it means graceful and pretty.“I’ve never h   小题7:   of that word!” said Lu. But she made a good guess. “Characters meaning pretty often have ‘女’ in it, w   小题8:  many characters pronouncing luan have ‘亦’. So I wrote it down: ‘婉娈’,” she said.

This secret weapon came from her good r 小题9:   habits.

“When others pay attention to the plot of a story, she looks at how writers use words and sentences to express themselves,” said Su Yunsheng, Lu’s Chinese teacher.

Su is happy to see students like Lu find the b   小题10:   of Chinese language.“Learning to write Chinese characters is an important part of inheriting (传承) culture,” said Su.