China has said that it wants 80% of its citizens to speak Mandarin¹, the country's dominant² dialect, by 2020.

中国政府于日前表示，希望在2020年前让80%的中国公民能够讲占主导地位的方言--普通话。

The current figure of 70% leaves hundreds of millions of people speaking other languages.

目前普通话使用者的比例是70%，因此仍有几亿人在使用其他语言。

China has numerous local dialects and the government wants to close the gap between different regions and groups of people.

中国存在着大量的地方方言，政府希望可以缩小不同地区和不同人群之间的差异。

In some cases the residents of one rural village may be unable to understand the locals living just two villages away, correspondents say.

有时候，某个村子里的村民可能都听不懂隔两个村庄以外的人们说的方言。

The Chinese government wants to remedy this, admitting that despite the majority of people in large cities understanding the language, only 40% of people in some parts of China are able to speak the national dialect.

中国政府希望改变目前的这一状况，承认尽管在大城市的大部分人都明白普通话，但在国内的某些地方，只有40%的人能够讲普通话。

It also wants to improve Mandarin speaking among teachers, especially those from ethnic³ minority regions.

此外，中国还希望提高教师讲普通话的能力，特别是在少数民族地区的教师。

The Chinese authorities said that they would ensure that all new teachers passed a standard Mandarin speaking test, adding that online remote teaching would also be used to ensure teachers of different Chinese ethnicities were able to learn.

中国当局表示，希望能保证所有的新教师都通过标准普通话水平测试，而网络远程教学也能用来保证不同民族的教师有条件去学习普通话。

China is the world's most populous⁴ nation with 1.35 billion people living in the country, which covers an area of 9.6 million sq km (3.7 million sq miles).

中国目前约有13.5亿人，是世界上人口最多的国家，分布在960万平方公里（370万平方英里）的广阔大地上。