English second language for spelling wizard

Kirk Hargreaves

Bookworm: Abbas Nazari, 12, was third in the national spelling championships. His mother, Mojtaba, is at left.

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Abbas Nazari did not speak English until about six years ago, but the Afghan refugee has been judged the country's third-best speller.

The 12-year-old Burnside High School student made the final three of the national spelling bee in Wellington on Saturday, coming to grief in round five on "silhouetted".

He missed out a t, a mistake he put down to nerves as it was a word he knew.

"You could feel the tension, it was cracking with electricity," he said.

It is a remarkable achievement for Nazari, who came to New Zealand via Nauru as one of the Tampa refugees.

In 2001, Abbas was one of more than 400 refugees rescued from a distressed fishing vessel north of Australia by the Norwegian freighter MS Tampa -- an incident that created headlines around the world when they were refused permission to them to land on Australian soil.

Abbas was one of the lucky ones.

He spent just one day on the Pacific island of Nauru before being flown to New Zealand in late 2001 with his family, while some of the other refugees were there for two or three years.

Once here, he made sure he made up for lost learning time.

"When we came to New Zealand we were so deprived of knowledge," Abbas said.

"I didn't know any English so I stayed at home and I could only watch TV or study, so I studied and caught up with all the rest."

"We had heaps of books at our house so I just read them."

At home the family still speaks their native Afghani language, Dari, so Abbas only speaks English at school and with friends.

A keen reader and football player, who recently broke his arm on the football pitch, Abbas is intent on a career reaching for the stars.

"I have a passion for astronomy but if that doesn't work out then I have literature as a back-up plan."

Thomas North of Hamilton won the spelling bee and Hugo Carnell of Auckland was second.

- © Fairfax NZ News