First game of the "Cietie rieksti. Alfabēts" tournament ends, with a Czech team winning
The State Language Centre has announced the results of the first game in the "Cietie rieksti. Alfabēts" tournament, which drew teams from many countries. Six teams scored the maximum 35 points, and the winners were chosen by a draw.
The Latvian Language Agency has announced that the first game of the "Cietie rieksti. Alfabēts" (roughly, "Tough Nuts. The Alphabet") tournament has ended. Teams from various countries around the world worked through the letters of the alphabet from A to E. The second game is already under way and invites participants to learn the next letters.
The hardest task
The agency says every team completed the learning process successfully. The most difficult task was recognising bird calls: it turned out that identifying Latvia's national bird by its voice is not simple at all.
Scores
Six teams reached the maximum of 35 points: "Riextu Riexti" (USA), "Dāboliņi" (Ireland), "Prāgas riekstkoži" (Czechia), "Turku zirņi" (Turkey), "Vācijas Sardīnes" (Germany, Italy) and "ZibenītisLU" (Sweden).
Seven teams scored 34 points, among them "Šašliku klubs" from New Zealand, "Makadāmijas rieksti" from Australia and "Hinkāļi" from Georgia. Three teams scored 33 and four scored 32, while "Bella Vita" from Italy had 31. Just under 30 points went to "Pokemoni", "Who let the dogs out? Kurš izlaida suņus?" and "Saulītes".
Winners
Because several teams finished level on points, the winners were determined by a draw. First place went to "Prāgas riekstkoži" from Czechia, second to "Turku zirņi" from Turkey, and third to "Vācijas Sardīnes" from Germany and Sardinia. The USA team "Lazdu galvas" received an encouragement prize.
The secret letter
The secret letter of the game was "M", so teams posed for photos holding stakes ("mieti" in Latvian). One team explained its photo with the words: "We are MIET-PILSOŅI", a pun on the Latvian word for stake.
Details of the second game are available on the tournament website, cietierieksti.com.
