Learning Shanghainese – Student’s Perspective

This is part two of LTL’s “Learning Shanghainese” series where we follow Alex, the director of LTL Mandarin School in Shanghai in his quest to learn Shanghainese. Last time in part 1 we learned Alex’ reasons for wanting to learn Shanghainese, as well as his first experience with the learning materials.

My first lesson of Shanghainese was both a thrill and a nightmare at the same time! I got used already to the tones of Mandarin and the way the language is pronounced, but Shanghainese was a totally different ball game.

Aside from the “v” and the “ng” sounds that do not exist in Mandarin, the tone system in Shanghainese is not the same. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot harder than Mandarin, as from my understanding, there are about 3 tones, with two of them used more often, but as with any language, learning the pronunciation system of any new language is tough at first.

Learning Shanghainese – My journey

After covering basic greetings and simply rules similar to Mandarin in the first chapter, we tried simulating a small conversation and to my surprise, it worked quite well. I learned useful words like “hungry”, “tired” (which literally means “eating energy”) and “thirsty” (which literally means “my mouth is dry”) and the basic pronouns.

Towards the second and third lesson, when we started running through a book specially designed for studying Shanghainese, we also started learning the romanisation system that is used for Shanghainese, similar to the Pinyin system used in Mandarin. As Shanghainese is not a language commonly studied, especially using textbooks, the romanisation is not fixed, and many parts of it need to be learnt anew without any reference to Mandarin or other system.

Entering Unchartered Waters

Traditional Shanghai Breakfast, youtiao and soy milk.

Together with the teacher, we practiced the various sounds and read the dialogues that follow each such practice. At this point, Mandarin really helped a lot. While the pronunciation is completely different, many of the characters still mean the same thing, and it definitely helps with understand the dialogue first, and then trying to pronounce everything as accurately as possible. I’m still not completely in control of the tones, but I think that will come with time and the more I practice both with my teacher, and with my Shanghainese friends (who by the way are super happy about me studying their language).

The teachers spices things up in the class from time to time by giving references to Shanghainese culture, such as the so-called “Four Shanghainese Breakfast Dishes” (大饼 Pancake, 油条 Oil Stick, 茨饭 A type of cooked rice cake, and 豆腐浆 Soy Milk), and the funny story he told me that while people in most parts of China offer water to guests that arrive to their homes, in Shanghai locals tend to offer tea.

The reason for this is that the pronunciation of “drinking water” sounds similar to the pronunciation of “urinating” in Shanghainese, so they try to avoid these sounds, even when those are called for.“

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