A TALENTED 11-year-old from York has passed her Spanish exam with flying colours - and proved to her mother who is number "Juan".

Huntington School pupil Cara Malarkey is celebrating gaining a GCSE grade C after putting her language skills to the test this summer.

But her proud mother Tina, who has attended classes with her for almost a year, has been left behind with a grade E.

Tina, 43, of Malton Road, said her daughter had received top marks in the four skills of speaking, reading, writing and listening.

She said: "She started off by learning numbers and colours but now she loves to sing along to Jennifer Lopez songs in Spanish and wants to be a TV presenter.

"It's thanks to her tutor that she's picked the language up so quickly, the lessons are brilliant, great fun and a bit mad."

The young linguist fell in love with the language five years ago after her aunt moved to South America and married an Argentinian.

More recently the mother and daughter team have been studying with York language tutor Julia Stanley.

Julia, of JLS Language Solutions, said: "I've never come across a girl who has picked up a language so quickly."

Updated: 09:19 Thursday, September 12, 2002