VietNamNet Bridge – When he was over two years old, he could speak 40-50 English words. When he was three, he spoke English more fluently than Vietnamese.

A good-looking 14 year old schoolboy, 1.8 meters tall, attracted the audience’s special attention when he appeared at the competition “Chinh phuc – Vi tam voc Viet” (conquering pinnacles – for the Vietnamese intelligence).

The boy is Luu Truong Vinh Tran, born in 2000 in the central city of Da Nang into a family where the father is a lecturer of the University of Education and mother a lecturer at the Foreign Language University, and his brother now is studying in India.

He is called a “multitalented” boy because of the high achievements in many different fields: the gold medal at the Math-Internet Olympiad national competition (when he was in the 5th grade), the consolation medal at the IOE English national competition (5th grade), the gold medal at the math competition APMOPS Asia Pacific (6th grade), golden certificate with 875/900 scores at the second round of TOEFL Junior Challenge (8th grade), and silver medal for math in English national competition (8th grade).

Most recently, Tran won the first prize at the Da Nang City Casio math competition.

The boy said he likes reading books and materials in English in many different fields, from Astronomy, History, Geography to Biology - Environment, Religion and Weapons.

Truong Thi Thoi, the mother of Tran, said that Tran not only likes reading cartoons like other boys of the same age, but also likes reading academic books that even her students do not want to read.

The boy reportedly could read and speak English fluently when he was three years old, though he could only begin talking at the age of two.

“When he was two years old, he could say only one word “ba” (dad). However, he learned to speak Vietnamese and English very quickly,” Tran’s mother said.

Just after a short time, Tran could speak 40-50 English words every evening before he went to bed. When he was three, he could speak English well, though his Vietnamese was not really fluent at that time. When Tran entered the first grade, he could communicate with foreigners in English.

Tran’s primary school teacher recalled the day when Tran and his friends were led to the My Son historical relic. “Tran surprised everyone when he talked with foreigners about the history and architecture of My Son,” she said.

Tien Phong