In France, Paris' most famous street was transformed into an open-air mass "dictation" spellathon on Sunday.
Pitting thousands of France’s brainiest bookworms against one another.
This "dictation competition" was initiated by the Champs Elysees Committee.
At the 6600 square meter space， it was filled with nearly 2000 desks, and a giant blackboard was also built under the Arc de Triomphe.
The organizers stated that they want to turn this world-renowned avenue into a stage to record unique moments.
For French people who love literature, "dictation" is an indispensable part of their basic education, and due to the complexity of French pronunciation and grammar, even adults cannot guarantee correct spelling.
According to the report, the dictation competition will start at 1 pm and take three consecutive exams, each with approximately 1700 candidates.
There are 50000 people applying to participate in the event nationwide, and the actual total number of participants exceeds 5000.
Candidates aged between 10 and 90 who have no Syntax error can be rewarded.
It Reveals a very French love affair with words, over 50,000 people applied to participate in the event at the Champs-Elysees — a world first — in which hopefuls attempted to faithfully and without error transcribe a text read to them.
Over 5,000 applicants aged 10 to 90 were chosen to participate in three sessions led by novelist Rachid Santaki.
The age range of participating candidates is large, and they also have different feelings about their own exam results.
For 10-year-old Samson, he said the dictation was “too fast”, so he gave up.
For Antoine, a top student who is in his final year of primary school, attended it with his father.
But despite being a star pupil, he had struggled to fill in his page.
“It was impossible,” he said. “The dictation was for adults.”
And his father Adrien Blind, 42, was equally relieved when the session wrapped, saying he “was in a state of stress and worry”.
For 65-year-old retiree Touria Zerhouni, he was more upbeat. “I only made two mistakes,” she said. “I expected it to be much harder.”
For this event, Marc Antoine Jamet, chairman of the Champs-Élysées Committee, said that this event is not only a test of your dictation ability.
“Dictation helps us to live together,” he said. “It's unifying.