When Hao Hua started school here nine years ago, he used an electronic translator he brought from China to communicate with his fourth-grade teacher and classmates.

He punched in his thoughts in Chinese, handed it to a teacher or classmate, and waited for them to punch in their English and pass it back.

"He's definitely come a long way as far as integrating himself into the American education system," said classmate Juan Manfredi, 17, who remembers when Hua was the new kid from China in fifth-grade at Kerr Elementary School in O'Hara, the Pittsburgh Trib reports.