As New York City’s spelling bee champions head to nationals in Washington, D.C. this week, they have one message with four letters: NO AI.
“I don't really like that idea that AI is actually taking over,” said Liam Kwon, 10, from Queens. “I want to keep the human qualities alive.”
“You can’t completely rely on spell check,” said Jay Nayak, 11, from Manhattan. Learning to spell the old-fashioned way “builds a work ethic,” he said.
After outspelling the competition in the citywide contest, Kwon and Nayak are representing New York City at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which kicks off Tuesday and runs through Friday. Almost 250 students who won their regional spelling bees will compete in the showdown, which includes both vocabulary and spelling rounds. Prizes range from $100 gift cards for the preliminary rounds to $50,000 for the champion.
Kwon is in fifth grade at P.S. 32 in Queens. Nayak is in sixth grade at Hunter College Elementary School in Manhattan. Each student won one day of the two-day citywide competition in March. Gothamist caught up with the hometown h-e-r-o-e-s ahead of the championship.
Kwon went viral last winter for his exuberant victory. He was clad in a jersey repping his favorite soccer team Sunderland AFC, prompting his player heroes to give him a call.
He said he hadn't really heard of spelling bees before last fall, when he saw his mom watching one on her phone.
“The National Spelling Bee just popped up into her YouTube feed,” he said. “So we watched it and then I thought it would be fun to do that.”
Kwon studied using spreadsheets he created that sorted words by their origin and roots. His favorite word is Bewusstseinslage, a German word defined as a “state of consciousness.” The longest word he knows is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease.
He says he practices about an hour a day on weeknights, and three hours a day on the weekends. His mom helps by quizzing him. Despite never participating in a spelling bee before, Kwon rocketed up the ranks. Over the winter, Kwon won his classroom bee, followed by his school bee and the district bee, and then made it to the citywide contest.
“It just looked like a mountain and there were so many parents there,” he said, describing his view from the stage. “It was nerve-racking to be honest, but I kept my calm and I thought that was one of the reasons why I was able to get this far.”
He wore the red-and-white Sunderland jersey because he considered himself, like the team, an underdog.
“I always think to myself that if I have the same fighting spirit this team has, then I can win the spelling bee, too,” he said.
Jay Nayak, 11, hoists his trophy.
He won on the word Dvorak, which refers to a a keyboard layout, cheering and pumping his fists in the air.
Soon after, he got the call from several Sunderland players, including one of his favorites, Dan Ballard, who invited him to attend one of their U.S. games this summer.
Nayak won the citywide bee with the word amylase, the digestive enzyme. This will be his third time participating in the national bee. “I was really proud to continue the streak,” he said. “I just felt on top of the world.”
As he gets ready for nationals, Nayak said he’s excited to reconnect with friends and make new ones. “Everyone's really awesome there, and it's just pretty cool meeting smart people like me from every corner of this country,” he said.
Nayak said he’d love to win, but he’s happy just to keep stretching his skills. “I usually just take deep breaths and assure myself that even if I misspell, I know that I’m better than last year. And I just want to improve, you know?”
He said preparing for the bee “really builds your character, builds your stamina, kind of sets you up for later challenges in your life.”
If he does win one of the big prizes, Nayak said he’d probably put some money away for college, invest some, and then donate to an orphanage in India.
Kwon said he doesn’t expect to win the nationals on his first time, but if he did win the top prize — which comes with $1,000 in Delta credit — he’d love to travel to England to see his team play on their home turf in Sunderland.
