Blind 10 year old girl becomes the European Parliament's youngest translator

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Blind 10 year old girl becomes the European Parliament’s youngest translator

Normally, you can’t even get into the chambers of the European Parliament for any reason unless you’re at least 14 years old… unless you’re 10 year old Alexia Sloane. At the age of 10, she’s already fluent in English, Spanish, Mandarin and soon German and she’s been invited to shadow parliamentary interpreters after demonstrating her amazing abilities to East of England MEP Robert Sturdy.

‘The other interpreters were amazed at how well she did as the debate was quite complicated and many of the words were rather technical.’

Alexia has been tri-lingual since birth as her mother, a teacher, is half French and half Spanish, while her father, Richard, is English. She started talking and communicating in all three languages before she lost her sight but adapted quickly to her blindness. By the age of four, she was reading and writing in Braille. When she was six, Alexia added Mandarin to her portfolio. She will soon be sitting a GCSE in the language having achieved an A* in French and Spanish last year. The girl is now learning German at school in Cambridge. Alexia has wanted to be an interpreter since she was six and chose to go to the European Parliament as her prize when she won a young achiever of the year award.

Via