Karan, 11, is language expert

An 11-year-old boy has won a gold award for learning languages during lockdown.

Karan Abrol, a pupil from Bannockburn Primary in Greenwich, has won a Champion of Champions award in a national language competition.

He is one of just 13 primary school children nationwide to have won a gold certificate in uTalk’s Junior Language Challenge.

Karan is not a stranger to winning competitions – he was also in the top 10 out of 39,000 entries in a story competition by David Walliams.

More than 2,300 children entered this year’s Junior Language Challenge, in which pupils had to learn two different languages in six months using the uTalk language learning app.

The competition was launched 16 years ago to show children how fun and easy it can be to learn a language.

In round one this year, schools could pick one of uTalk’s 145 languages. The

pupils’ adventurous choices included Maori, Japanese, Mandarin and Zulu, while in round two entrants all studied French.

Normally these young people would have competed each other in the finals but this was cancelled due to Covid 19. Karan continued to work hard on all three languages and has remained the top scorer for Spanish, French and German.

Karan said: “I’m very excited to have received the gold award and hope to learn more languages using the Ucoins that I have won.

“I have already started learning Hindi and Mandarin. I hope to travel a lot when I am older and think the languages I learn will make this possible.”

His mum Shalini said: “He loves reading, writing and carrying out science experiments in addition to spending time with Dovahkin, our family dog.”

Pictured top: Karan with family dog, Dovahkin