Learning Shanghainese

[Harvey]

Hello,

Has anyone ever known anyone to...

Go to Shanghai to study Mandarin. Learn Mandarin in class, and become conversational... and ALSO at the same time learning Shanghainese on the streets of Shanghai, and also becoming conversational in that... within one year?

Wondering if it would be best to learn Mandarin somewhere like Dailen or Beijing first, and then move to Shanghai for work and try to pick up Shanghainese at that time.

I hear that when doing business in China, knowing Shanghainese is a definite plus.

I heard it's a lot fo fun too!

- Harvey

[spencer4554]

I was actually wondering the same thing. I want to move to shanghai with my shanghaineese wife, and it seems like everyone speaks shanghaineese to eachother. Therefore even though im learning mandarin, im still going to be lost in shanghai.

paul

[dalaowai]

I've been living in Shanghai for about a year and a half and I can understand the majority of what people are saying in Shanghainese. I can't speak much, but I can get the jist of what they're saying. I've yet to meet a Shanghainese that couldn't speak Mandarin. (maybe a few elderly people)

If you study at JiaoTong Da Xue, they offer an additional shanghainese course. I've also found Mandarin-Shanghainese MP3s to learn as well.

There's not much use in learning Shanghainese. The government is pushing for Mandarin to be spoken instead of Shanghai dialect. In most office settings, they speak Mandarin as at least half of employees are non-Shanghainese. I'm sure within a year of hanging out with Shanghainese, you'll pick up on the dialect. Just make a few Shanghainese friends and don't spend the majority of your time with foreigners.

But yeah, if you choose to study it, there are a lot of similarities between Mandarin, Shanghainese and Zhejiang dialects (i.e. Zhoushan dialect, Ningbo dialect, etc)