A love of learning Spanish has paid off for Tauranga student Toby Langdon - he's off to Argentina next year on a $4000 scholarship to further his expertise in the language.

The year 12 student at Tauranga Boys' College won the scholarship through the Language Perfect World Championships on the Dunedin-based Education Perfect website, after achieving the minimum number of points required in the competition to be eligible to apply.

'I applied and then 10 people got selected for interviews, and then about five of those people got the scholarship,” he says.

The website is used as a learning tool by thousands of teachers and students mainly from across New Zealand and Australia.

It's been a favourite subject of Toby's throughout his secondary school years.

'Ever since I started at Tauranga Boys' College I just loved learning Spanish,” he says.

He's looking forward to being billeted with a local family for the six months he will be in the world's largest Spanish-speaking nation. He's not sure where just yet, but says it will probably be in the city of Rosario, 300km northwest of Buenos Aires.

He's not only looking forward to the chance to perfect his Spanish languge ability while he's there but also immerse himself in local cultural experiences.

He's not sure if the language will be of much use to him in his dream job, though.

He's hoping to combine two of his other interests, theatre and drama and Taekwon-Do, to carve out a career in stunt work and acting, and to study drama at university.

He was part of the Tauranga Boys' College Team which last month took second place at the Norfolk Island International Drama competitions.

He's also a second dan black belt and instructor at Tauranga's Martial Arts Academy, and says he's been doing Taekwon-Do his whole life.

'And I've really enjoyed the kicks and the stunts that I can do from that and so I hope to use my Taekwon-Do ability to further me in the stunt world.”

Toby travels to Argentina to take up the scholarship in July next year.