Shanghainese

[amanogawamakoto]

I found pretty decent audio in Shanghainese here: globalrecordings [insert dot] net

[xxxxSOSEXYxxxx]

I'm soo interested in learning!!!

[missuscheese]

!

Do you have a video of yourself speaking Shanghainese :D

How many other languages do you know?

[KoolJayJ]

I still retain a moderate level of shanghainese which is in my opinion quite impressive since i pretty much learned it just by talking with family members not to mention i have been moved and raised in a western country since i was 7. My 10 yr old brother who is currently residing in Shanghai right now has lost his fluency with the dialect. Mandarin is his main way of communicating in chinese now. *sigh* Its definitely dieing.

[kickiniitbak]

@KoolJayJ It's funny because Majority of the people in Shanghai are now speaking Mandrin because of the people coming in from the country side to find employment. Shanghainese is a dying language which is very sad. School is now supposed to teach in Mandrin. They need to teach Shanghainese again. I am very fluent in Shanghainese

[equn]

The issue is that 99% Wuu speakers speak Mandarin natively. The language is going to disappear....

[Crapidiot]

@equn

yeah

cant do anything about it.

[dcikaruga]

Some asian films give examples of the dialect for you to hear, look up 'Centre Stage' 1992. Theres a lot of shanghainese speaking in that film. Sadly most dialects in china are in decline since the government has enforced mandarin as the official language. Even kids in schools are forbidden to speak in there native dialects.

[chenfang148]

I speak Ningbo, and it's really similar to Shanghainese. The language is freakishly interesting though LOL

[JohnnyLizard919]

@chenfang148 ningbo basically is shanghainese except ningbo has different terms and words from shanghainese. I know cause i have ningbo ancestry but then i speak shanghainese....=D

[chenfang148]

@JohnnyLizard919 well not EXACTLY. many terms are spoken VERY differently. I have a couple of Shanghainese friends and it's kind of complicated to communicate with them. and "kind of" is a major understatement.

[Gnawliryc]

@chenfang148 this is so freaking old, but YES NINGBO

though i can barely speak any of it... im starting to learn some from my dad

[chenfang148]

@Gnawliryc 3 months ago. smh. LOL.

that's nice O: .

[nillava]

you is a good leaner cheer~

[kwangolitit]

try cebuano ,pls.... or u can call it visaya......a lot of visaya speaking people.....

[bluninjadragon]

do you know taiwanese? i've been really wanting to learn = =

[laoshu505000]

@bluninjadragon Yes, I know Taiwanese.

[marcelldabest]

@laoshu505000 i like your videos there very insteresting :D

[wonderboye]

You should check out the newly released Shanghainese lessons from ChinesePod as of yesterday! (they've recently started a pilot program of sorts it seems for Catonese and Shanghainese to expand on the the Mandarin lessons they already ofter). They all have audio too.

[acbz09]

nice schpou

[oxinian1]

i'd like to ask you if you could speak Hungarian?

if you need help in it i can help you .

[jessicaz08]

i speak shanghinese :D

[alleywatson]

I was lucky but If you are living in Shanghai, go to the Shanghai foreign book store, Fuzhou Lu

I bought a Shanghainese book with an audio cd called 'Shanghai Dialect For Foreigners' by xu Ziliang ISBN 7-88422-064-4

[alleywatson]

Sorry but i'd forget the book as it won't help, I lived with my wife's family for 3 years and that's the only way, good luck though

[laoshu505000]

That's good for you my friend.

[lisaslastaccount]

i speak shanghainese fluently :) and i think its really easy because there's no 'sh' 'th' sounds so all the pronunciations are pretty flat

[foodovision]

Hey man, nice work!  I'm a language fan myself, and was looking around the internet for anything I could find on Shanghainese. Nice to come a cross a video of someone else who's curious!

Luke

[darthjohn0]

A comment below says u speak japanese and mandarin...i live in japan and have seen books for learning shanghainese in book stores. There might be more resources for learning shanghainese in japanese and mandarin than english, so maybe you could find learning materials in those languages respectively. It could help you maintain or improve the languages you already know as well.

[mattaku1]

I would consider Shanghainese a LANGUAGE!

Lol... I understand Cantonese and Mandarin but SHANGHAINESE is smth else!

[jimmyjamesWang]

Wu 'dialect' would have been a language had any Wu kingdom existed independent of Mandarin speaking authorities for more than 200 years. Well, unfortunately that never happened. So, Wu 'dialect' is still some what of a dialect. Although it is just so different from mandarin grammer, especially the written form.

[mattaku1]

Yes, but even thou, the Wu 'dialect' is still considered to be a language rather than a dialect as it is not understood by people who speak Mandarin. If two dialects aren't mutually intelligible, then it is as good as two languages. It would make more sense to say Cantonese and Mandarin (I speak these two) are one languages as they are somewhat mutually intelligible.

[jimmyjamesWang]

well, that's true.

[mattaku1]

I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin but when I listen to Shanghainese, I dont understand an ounce of it. I have Shanghainese relatives and when they tried to speak Shanghainese to me, it sounded entirely different. XD I consider it a different language because its not mutually intellectual.

[mattaku1]

But wether it is a language or not, it is an interesting dialect/language and i find it very cool that someone is learning it.

[tynormalbeep]

@mattaku1 its the same as mandarin but in a diffrent accent/tone tbh i have trouble understanding cantonese

[adlinad]

actually as a linguist, I would have to say that chinese "dialects" are more different than the romance languages (french, spanish, portuguese, italian, romanian etc) and so linguistically they are considered languages. Only in socio-political contexts are they considered dialects, and indeed that is how I refer to them when not talking about linguistics.

[mayena]

@adlinad Because they use the same logographic script. If they used a phonetic script it would be visible to outsiders that they are very different languages.

[mynameismarvin]

@adlinad actually, since chinese is written in a logographic script, meaning you use sort of a symbol to represent a meaning, chinese writing in any of the chinese "dialects" is mutually comprehensible with each other. Some are usually inferred because sometimes other "dialects" prefer a character which is synonymous with another character which other "dialects" use. Many synonyms exist in Chinese writing.

[mynameismarvin]

@adlinad and also by the way, in my opinion, linguists say that chinese "dialects" are more different than the romance languages, as you said, because chinese depends too much on tones, and through time, tones of words change, but the actual word just varied a little and almost every term in every chinese dialect is a cognate, which means that they descended from the same word, so they sound the same. hope this helps in your understanding of chinese dialects :)

[adlinad]

@mynameismarvin sorry, i still disagree. Actually, coming from a family that speaks three Chinese varieties, (Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Cantonese, the largest three Chinese language groups), and myself speaking two fluently and one decently, I have to say that the way people speak is completely different from how they write. The written language used in Chinese communities is that and reflects very closely the spoken variety known as Mandarin. Take for example the following example (next post)

[adlinad]

@mynameismarvin For example, to say "Are these their books?" In mandarin it would be 这些是不是他们的书？(zhe xie shi bu shi tamen de shu?) while in cantonese it will be spoken like this, although normally we don't use these characters except when getting exact words such as in a police investigation of suspects 呢啲係咪佢哋嘅书? (ni di hai mhai keuidei ge syu?) as you can see, there is almost no correspondence between the two languages phonetically. This is true of many common words in various Chinese languages

[adlinad]

@mynameismarvin you are somewhat correct, however, when you say "sometimes other "dialects" prefer a character which is synonymous with another character which other "dialects" use." although to say a "character" would imply that they write in their own dialects. Most dialects, instead, write in Mandarin mostly, although there are quite a few obscure mandarin words whose cognates are used commonly in place of other words in the speech of the various varieties of chinese.

[adlinad]

@mynameismarvin I still say Romance languages are much more similar than Chinese dialects. I've studied Spanish and understand both spoken Italian and portuguese rather easily, not to mention the written forms, which i can understand almost perfectly. from what I hear, others also have this experience. But in the Chinese varieties, although tones do change regularly, there are still numerous grammatical and lexical differences that result in mutual incomprehensibility at least upon first contact

[mynameismarvin]

@adlinad yes, i do agree since i've studied spanish as well and i speak three chinese varieties, namely mandarin, minnan and cantonese. but still, considering the vast expanse of chinese varieties in terms of area and comparing it to the scope of the romance languages, it's still amazing that there's still a minimal comprehensibility in words and more in writing.

[mynameismarvin]

@adlinad about the written example of cantonese that you cited, i believe that that's just a colloquial improper writing even though many people use it. you can notice many "mouth" radicals in those characters meaning they were just recently invented. if they were written using the proper character, they would be mutually comprehensible. but anyway, that's just my opinion :D

[TaiGekTou]

@mattaku1 Favouritism? Cantonese and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible. You speak both and you don't know that? : /

[aliceacademy8]

Holy shit. You are now officially my guru. I LOVE how you love languages!

[zhongguohua88]

Thanks for replying to my comment, I've just made a video response. I will try to find a host and send you the audio that goes with the books. I will also try to find a way to get the books to you by scanning them or mailing them. Thanks again, I'm really eager to learn with you!!!

[kealist]

They have audio for that Dunwoody book. I bought a tape when I ordered it. The tape didn't work but Dunwoody mailed me a CD with it on it--it does work.

[laoshu505000]

Do you have the mailing info by any chance? I would really love to get my hands on that.

[BMTH0084]

I'm guessing a TY Shanghainese doesn't exist?

[laoshu505000]

Unfortunately, no...THAT WOULD PWN IF THERE WAS ONE!

[JoshuaXiong]

lul

[jimmyjamesWang]

what's a TY?

[laoshu505000]

That would be the (teach yourself) series.

[loki2504]

That so hard to find ! cambogian ressources are soooo rare.

[EspanolVLog]

You speak Japanese right? If so, which do you find more fun to speak, Chinese or Japanese? I need to get crackin on my Asian languages. :-)

[laoshu505000]

hahahaha! They're both fun actually. You should try both. I think you will do well.

[EspanolVLog]

Great! I'll get started after my nap. lol. Language learners need a good amount of rest

[laoshu505000]

No kidding!

[loki2504]

Btw, did you find some other materials to study khmer language? (other than colloquial)?

[laoshu505000]

No I haven't unfortunately.