He advised parents and students yesterday not to give up learning mother tongue languages just because it is difficult. Otherwise, they would be losing something precious.

'My advice to all parents: Never mind how much trouble your children are having in primary and secondary school. Get them to catch the sound, sentence structure and words,' he said.

'They don't have to score an A or A star, even a B or C, but they have a sense of the language. So to all parents and young students, whatever the difficulties you face, just keep on.

'Don't lose touch or you will lose something very precious.'

Mr Lee, who launched the Confucius Institute at Nanyang Technological University's one-north campus in Buona Vista, was referring not just to the Chinese language but other mother tongues as well.

He said: 'So for the Malays, we want them to keep their Malay language alive. Then when we do business with Malaysia, with Indonesia...it is easy. And we want some of our non-Malay officers also to understand Malay.

'For the Indians, they have to keep the languages alive...Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi. And even our Arabs. We're trying to get our Arabs to revive their Arabic so they can connect with the Gulf states and we can do business with them.

'So two languages for Singaporeans will give us a cultural and an economic advantage.'

The issue of learning mother tongue harks back to when Mr Lee was prime minister.

He recalled how he had encouraged Chinese Singaporean children to learn their mother tongue and Confucian values as 'ballast against the increasing influence of Western values and culture'. After 40 years, nearly all Chinese Singaporeans are bilingual, and this has turned out to be an advantage.

'With the rise of China as an economic powerhouse, the mastery of Chinese language and our understanding of Chinese culture are sought by many people across the world,' said Mr Lee.

Its growing importance was also noted by Mr Xu Jialu, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress.

Speaking in Mandarin, he said with China's rise, the world's eyes were focused on the language.

Mr Lee said the key was to start learning it early: 'If you hear it when you are young, you can repeat it...you can catch it. You may not know many words or phrases, but you do know sentence structure and the way to pronounce the words and put your ideas across.'

The person's grasp of the language may not be as good as someone who studied Chinese as a first language or who spoke it from birth, he acknowledged.

However, Mr Lee was confident that with an early foundation, a person could have '80 to 90 per cent understanding' of the language when he needs to use it or when he is immersed in a Chinese environment.

Raffles Junior College student Peh Li Qi, 17, said although learning Chinese can be difficult, she pressed on. She believed it was an advantage having two languages as Singapore is where East and West meet. It also helped her understand Chinese culture and philosophy better.

sueann@sph.com.sg