Regarding spelling bees being unique to English. While it's probably true, spelling competitions exist in other languages but in a form of dictation. Do a searc

Regarding spelling bees being unique to English. While it's probably true, spelling competitions exist in other languages but in a form of dictation. Do a search for "national dictation contest" to see it happening in multiple countries and, I imagine, searching in different languages will reveal more. I figure the reason why spelling single words is not practiced in other languages is that many languages inflect words in irregular ways so being able to correctly spell a default form of a word is not a very impressive skill. But I would be very surprised if a form of spelling bee does not exists in China.