Schools should stop teaching children so much French and German and focus instead on Mandarin, David Cameron has said on his return from a three-day trip to China.

英国首相戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)在完成对中国为期3天的访问后回国时表示，学校不该再教孩子们那么多法语和德语了，而是应把重点放在汉语上。

Although the prime minister helped sign trade deals worth £6bn during the visit, he warned that Britain risked losing out in the long run by continuing to put European languages first.

尽管卡梅伦在此次访华期间推动签订了价值60亿英镑的贸易协议，但他警告称，如果英国继续将欧洲语言放在首位，长期而言可能会是个损失。

Mr Cameron said: “I want Britain linked up to the world’s fast-growing economies. And that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow’s business deals.

卡梅伦表示：“我希望英国与全球增长迅速的经济体建立联系。这包括让我们的年轻人学习它们的语言，以缔结未来的商业协议。”

“By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be the world’s largest economy. So it’s time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin.”

“等到今天出生的孩子从学校毕业时，中国将成为全球最大经济体。因此，现在是时候把目光从传统关注的法语和德语上移开、让更多孩子学习汉语了。”

The prime minister spent the final day of his tour in Chengdu, where he announced a range of measures to boost Mandarin studies in the UK.

卡梅伦访华的最后一天是在成都度过的，他在那里宣布了一系列措施，以促进英国的汉语教学。

The British Council and the Hanban, the Chinese office for teaching Mandarin as a foreign language, have signed an agreement to double the number of Chinese language assistants by 2016. The government will also fund a greater proportion of what schools pay to teach the language.

英国文化协会(British Council)与中国对外汉语教学的组织国家汉办(Hanban)已签署协议，计划到2016年，将汉语助教的数量增加一倍。英国政府还将拨出更多款项帮助学校支付汉语教学的费用。

In addition, the two organisations will fund 60 headteachers to go on study visits to China in 2014, with the aim of doubling the number of Mandarin learners to 400,000.

另外，这两个组织将奖资助60名英国的中小学校长在2014年赴中国学习考察，目的是将英国汉语学习者的数量增加一倍，达到40万人。

Despite efforts by the British Council and UK-based Confucius Institutes to increase the uptake, Mandarin teaching has only taken off in a few schools. A YouGov poll taken last year suggested that only 3 per cent of primaries and 9 per cent of secondaries were offering lessons. Two per cent of schools said they had started classes but then withdrawn them.

尽管英国文化协会和位于英国的孔子学院(Confucius Institutes)正努力增加学员数量，但目前只有为数不多的学校开办了汉语教学课程。YouGov去年进行的一项调查显示，只有3%的小学和9%的中学有汉语课程。2%的学校表示，它们曾经开办过汉语课，但后来取消了。

However, Mr Cameron’s focus is not limited to just language teaching. He also announced that a group of British maths teachers would go to China to investigate maths and science teaching, hoping they can learn from successes that this week saw Shanghai teenagers soar ahead of students from other countries in the OECD’s rankings.

然而，卡梅伦关注的不仅限于语言教学。他还宣布，一些英国数学老师将到中国考察数学和科学科目的教学，希望他们能从中国吸取成功经验——在本周经合组织(OECD)的国际学生能力评估项目(Pisa)测试中，上海的学生排名遥遥领先于其他国家的学生。

The British Council has also agreed to teach 50,000 English teachers in China over the next three years. The announcements shift the focus of Mr Cameron’s trip from immediate dealmaking to longer-term planning for what the UK should do to adapt to the reality of China as an economic powerhouse.

英国文化协会还同意在未来3年内为中国5万英语老师授课。这些声明将卡梅伦此次访华的重点，从当前的贸易订单转变为更长期的计划——英国采取应有的行动去适应中国成为经济强国的现实。

The three days in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu saw several deals signed, from Jaguar Land Rover cars to folding bicycles to pig exports, but the most important element of the visit was the fact it happened at all.

卡梅伦在北京、上海和成都为期3天的访问推动签署了多项协议，从捷豹路虎(Jaguar Land Rover)汽车到折叠自行车，再到猪精液出口，但最重要的一点是此次访问终于成行。

British ministers have for the past 18 months failed to arrange bilateral meetings with their Chinese counterparts, with the UK in the doghouse after Mr Cameron had met the Dalai Lama.

过去18个月，英国的大臣们一直未能成功安排与中方同等级官员的双边会晤，因为在卡梅伦会见**喇嘛(Dalai Lama)之后，英国一直受到冷落。

Mr Cameron’s visit was meant to heal that rift, so he was delighted when Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, called the bilateral relationship “indispensable”. However, the diplomatic slog appeared to have backfired when the Global Times, a Communist newspaper, accused Mr Cameron of insincerity and irrelevance.

卡梅伦此次访华旨在弥合裂缝，因此当中国国务院总理李克强称中英完全可以实现“优势互补”时，他很高兴。但这种外交努力似乎有些弄巧成拙，中共党报《环球时报》批评卡梅伦不真诚、不重要。

The prime minister then caught a glimpse of the tortuous internal workings of the Chinese government when the paper later published a piece insisting that previous disagreements should not be allowed to taint the future partnership.

后来，《环球时报》又发表了一篇文章坚称，以前的分歧不应影响未来的合作。这让卡梅伦得以一窥中国政府曲折迂回的内部运作。

Mr Cameron’s last day, spent in Chengdu, one of China’s fastest-growing cities, was a less hectic affair, including a trip to the cottage that was once the home to Du Fu, China’s most famous poet.

卡梅伦此次访华的最后一天，是在成都度过的，作为中国发展最快的城市之一，成都之行似乎没那么忙碌，卡梅伦参观了中国最著名诗人杜甫的故居——杜甫草堂。

Yet even there, the prime minister kept the focus on the mercantilist aspect of his trip, saying: “It was said in 19th-century America that if you wanted to see the future you should go west, and I think today the same could be applied to China.”

不过即便在那里，卡梅伦仍然保持此行“重商”的特点，他表示：“据说，在19世纪的美国，如果你想看到未来，你就应该到西部去，我认为这可能也适用于今天的中国。”