Dr. Kissinger fascinated by Ms. Tang' s English

It is on Chinese public record that the command of English of Nancy Tang Wensheng (left), the official interpreter of Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, was so impressive that Dr. Henry Kissinger remarked in Beijing in 1972 that she could actually run for US presidency. Of course, English is now the most popular second language in China and the country's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, is also "a fluent speaker of English".

Several leading institutes of higher learning in China, such as Beijing Foreign Studies University , also offer full courses on, among other languages of the world, Malay, Indonesian, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian and Japanese and the official China Radio International nowadays broadcasts in 43 languages like Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Pushtu, Singhalese and Urdu. Certainly, there are also many schools and programmes in universities in China that offer Chinese-as-Second-Language courses to foreign students.

Rudd' s Mandarin impresses Chinese president

' Nancy ' as Chairman Mao's interpreter in 1972