'Vindaloo' wins girl Canada spelling bee

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TORONTO, March 29 (UPI) -- A 12-year-old Newfoundland girl clinched the championship in Canada's national spelling bee in Toronto by correctly spelling vindaloo.

Jennifer Mong won the eighth annual Postmedia Canspell National Spelling Bee with the word she only learned a week ago, the National Post reported.

Vindaloo is a type of East Indian curry dish.

The national competition sends the top three finalists to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington in May. This year, all three Canadian participants are girls.

Mong won $7,500, which she said she'll probably bank toward her planned studies to become a veterinarian.

The second prize was $5,000 for 12-year-old Mignon Tsai of British Columbia. She lost out by misspelling "Zanzibari," an island off the east coast of Africa.

The third prize of $2,500 went to 11-year-old Zhongtian Wang of Ontario, who stumbled on the word "epistolary," an adjective meaning suitable for or pertaining to letters or letter writing.