US puts premium on Mandarin speakers

China's emergence has made it "hugely important" for American students to be fluent in Mandarin according to Margaret Spellings, US education secretary.

Spellings made the remark after she signed a new memorandum of understanding with China's ministry of education late last week to expand language and academic exchanges.

"It's in their [US students'] interest to come and learn from and about China and the Chinese people," she said. "You can buy in any language but you have to sell in the language of the buyer."

Research supported by the US state department has found the number of Americans studying in China jumped 35 per cent in 2004-05 over the previous university year. Spellings said her agency would work to continue the trend.

According to the Chinese ministry, 10,340 Americans studied in China last year, a smaller cohort than the 54,080 from South Korea or 18,870 from Japan.

The Bush administration plans to spend $114m in 2007 to fund its national security language initiative, which aims to increase drastically the number of Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Hindi and Farsi speakers in the US.

The US state department estimates that 200,000 Americans study abroad each year, a significantly smaller group than the 550,000 students from around the world who go to the states for an education.

Of those studying in the US, 62,580, or roughly 11 per cent of the total, came from Chinese mainland this past school year. China is second only to India, which sent 76,500 students to the US, as a source of students for US schools.

Spellings said that the Bush administration was now working to make visa application procedures "easier and more transparent" to encourage international students.

美国教育部部长玛格丽特·斯佩林斯称，随着中国的崛起，熟练掌握普通话对于美国学生来说已变得“极其重要”。

斯佩林斯上周末说这番话之前，与中国教育部签署了一份有关扩大两国语言和学术交流的谅解备忘录。

她说：“对于美国学生来说，来中国学习、了解中国和中国人民是很有好处的。如果美国人想在中国做生意，必须会说中文。”

由美国国务院支持的一项调查发现，2004年至2005年间在华的美国留学生人数较之上一学年增长了35%。斯佩林斯表示，美国教育部将努力使这一趋势保持下去。

据中国教育部统计，去年的美国在华留学生共有1.034万人，少于在韩国和日本的5.408万人和1.887万人。

布什政府计划于明年为“国家安全语言计划” 提供1.14亿美元的资金支持。这项计划旨在大幅增加美国会说汉语、阿拉伯语、俄语、印度语和波斯语的人数。

据美国国务院统计，美国每年只有20万人在国外留学，远远少于世界各地赴美留学的55万人。

在过去的一学年中，中国大陆的赴美留学生共有6.258万人，约占留美学生总数的11%。中国是美国的第二大留学生生源国，仅次于印度。印度去年共有7.65万人赴美留学。

斯佩林斯说，布什政府目前正在采取措施，使签证申请程序“更加简单和透明”，以鼓励更多的外国学生来美国留学。

Vocabulary:

visa application procedure : 签证申请程序