IGNIS Summer 2017 | Page 19

y LUS 67 – 2017 9 1 : UK Francesca and Ben tak e a chess challenge KONNICHIWA by Francesca Glover, ag ed 13 Young Reporter Daniel met and interviewed maths presenter Johnny Ball and PPUK Chief Executive Denise Yates for the Young Roots Project I love anything Japanes e, so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to go to a real Japanese class and lea rn a thing or two. We tried the pr oper way to do calligraphy, with ink and a brush, made origami hats out of newspaper and, for the first time, I got to write kanji . In Japan there are 2,136 comm only used kanji, I’m so glad that in English I only need to know the 26 letters of the alphabet! We th en had to use our newfound know ledge of writing kanji to fill in a quiz on Japanese. The whole experience made me love Japan ev en more. I learned a lot of new skills which I will aim to improve in the future. Johnny Ball on the bal l with a great maths tal k That was the highligh t for me, but the food and othe r activities in which I participated were great too. For example , I didn’t know that I could like maths until I went to Johnny Ball’s talk; he definitely makes it much more interesting than my maths teachers (sorry teachers !), I heard a great talk on Big Cats and I enjoyed the chan ce to challenge my older br other to a game of chess. It was a stalemate in the end bu t I really liked trying to beat him ! Off to practise my Jap anese now - Sayōnara exploring calligraphy IGNIS 19