Isabel Jacobsen has a solid coach in Jeff Kirsch, who has been helping her since September. Kirsch was a finalist as a child in the National Spelling Bee and was in the National Senior Spelling Bee in 2004, for contestants age 50 and older.
Kirsch said they have been studying phonetics and spelling patterns of foreign words, including German, Italian, Japanese, Slavic languages and French. Kirsch said that more than 10 percent of contestants are eliminated by misspelling a word with a French origin.
â??French words are notorious for having strange and difficult spelling,â? said Kirsch, who teaches Spanish and Portuguese in continuing studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He said Jacobson has a born ability and love of words, which has helped her improve since they started working together.