I refer to Ms Aletheia Chan Woon Cheng's letter on the state of the Chinese language here (Time for people to regain passion and purpose for their mother tongue, Dec 7).

Besides the prevalent use of English in society, one reason for the decline of the Chinese language here is that many Chinese Singaporean parents communicate in English, and thus naturally speak to their children in English.

Hence, Chinese is just a school subject to these children.

If this goes on, Singapore might as well allow parents to choose any language as the second language for their children to learn in school.

Another reason is that not many people can be proficiently bilingual.

Most people can manage to be proficient in only one language, and for most Singaporeans, that is English. Hence, we should lower our expectations for the standard of Chinese here.

So long as children are able to speak Mandarin and be understood by ethnic Chinese in other countries, and able to read Chinese signboards, notices and menus, we should be satisfied.

It is not realistic to expect them to be able to read or write Chinese documents at the workplace or even read Chinese literature. This can usually be achieved only through years of education conducted in Chinese.

If we lower our expectations for the standard of Chinese here, then Singapore has already succeeded in encouraging most Chinese Singaporeans to speak Mandarin through the Speak Mandarin Campaign.

Lee Yim May