A contestant prepares to answer cultural knowledge questions during the British leg of the ninth "Chinese Bridge" world university students' Chinese lauguage competition at the London School of Economics in London, capital of Britain, March 13, 2010. [Xinhua]

China is to launch an oral Chinese proficiency test for non-native Putonghua speakers this year, which is expected to be more localized and useful in daily communication compared with the Chinese Proficiency Test, or HSK, known as the "Putonghua TOEFL."

The computer-based test, known as the Hanyu Kouyu Shuiping Ceshi (HKC), or the Oral Chinese Proficiency Test, will be held in June and December this year in a first batch of nine cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing municipalities, Shandong, Fujian, Jiangsu and Hubei provinces, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the newly established Tianjin-based Oral Chinese Proficiency Test Commission (OCPTC) said in a statement Monday.

Participants in the test will be required to complete seven sections in 30 minutes on computers, including reading, asking questions, repeating and talking, while the oral proficiency of the examinees will be divided into nine degrees in three levels according to their scores, Zhao Hongtao, director of the OCPTC, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Wang Dengfeng, vice director of the National Chinese Language Commission, told the Global Times that the test is aimed at helping foreigners to get to know their speaking ability in Chinese, find their deficiencies, provide enjoyment and get to know more about Chinese culture when taking the test.

For Chinese learners, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, or HSK, has a history of nearly 20 years. It consists of three levels: elementary, intermediate and advanced.

The number of HSK examinees has reached more than 1 million since it was launched in 1991, including foreigners, overseas Chinese and students from Chinese minority ethnic groups, and the number has been increasing by 30 percent in recent years, the China News Agency reported.

Du Jia, the spokeswoman of the Chinese Language Council International, said that 548,000 non-native Chinese speakers had taken the test in 59 countries outside China by 2009.

Compared with the HSK, which includes an optional independent oral test, the HKC focuses only on the participants' oral proficiency and demands less preparation, Wang said, adding that a non-native speaker can take the elementary test after learning Chinese for about three months.

"If you pass the advanced test, it shows you have the ability to express a relatively complicated feeling and elaborate your opinion clearly," Wang said, adding that it will be a complement to the HSK.

"The HKC test will help universities and companies assess students' and employees' oral communication skills, as the HSK test is hard for foreigners who do not read a large vocabulary of Chinese characters but could conduct daily communication with proficiency," Zhao Hongtao said.