Language should be a matter of choice

If you don't know what I mean, all you need is to take a bus or subway in Beijing and listen to the announcements. "Get off the train" is not wrong on paper, but with a slightly strident tone you'll feel you're being kicked off.

I once attended an opera performance of The Peony Pavilion, a classic piece with great beauty. The projected English titles essentially turned many of the passages into bawdy humor. I learned that the hack job was delivered by some translating agency, probably staffed by people rolled off the college assembly line.

I told the show's producer that a certain Chinese professor spent his whole career fine-tuning every word of his English translation of this piece. This is not a job for which a four-year education is adequate preparation. Why not license that high-quality version?

China does not need a billion people who speak English poorly; it needs a much smaller population whose English skill is adequate for their jobs. Let each individual decide how much English he or she should master.

And the new testing mechanism is a right step in that direction.