China has said that it wants 80% of its citizens to speak Mandarin, the country’s dominant dialect, by 2020.

　　中国表示，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, the government says.

　　政府指出，目前普通话使用者的比例是70%，因此仍有几亿人使用其他语言。

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

　　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。

　　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状况，表示尽管在大城市的大部分人懂普通话，但在中国一些地方只有40%的人能够讲普通话。

　　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.

　　中国政府说，希望能保证所有新教师都通过标准普通话水平测试，并补充说，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 populous 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。