NIKKO Hotel Royal Lake in Yangon will host the Japanese Speech Contest 2007 on October 20, the Japanese embassy announced last week.

During the contest, which will be held from 9am to 1:30pm, each participant will deliver a four- to five- minute speech, after which he or she will face two minutes of questioning by the judges on the speech topic.

Any Myanmar national who has passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level-2 or with the equivalent proficiency is eligible to apply for the contest. However, those who have lived in Japan for more than six months or who has won first prize at Japanese Speech Contests in the past two years are not eligible.

The announcement instructed those interested in taking part in the contest to pick up an application form at the Japanese embassy in Yangon or HITO Centre in Mandalay between August 14 and 28.

Prospective contestants must submit a completed application form, a tape recording of a four- to five- minute Japanese-language speech and a transcript of the speech about 400 Japanese characters in length, to the embassy or HITO Centre by August 28.

The selected candidates will be announced on the notice boards of the embassy and HITO Centre on September 24.

Each year the Japanese embassy also holds an examination for the prize winners of the Japanese Speech Contest and Japanese Literature Translation Contest, and sends one person with outstanding scores on a two-week trip to Japan.