Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
Expats enrol in popular dialect course
By Liang Yiwen |
November 23, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Every week around 30 expats pack a classroom at Shanghai Tongji University to learn practical, "survival" Shanghai dialect.
The course became popular in 2006 after it was revised to make it more relevant and focus on spoken Shanghainese. The course launched in 1998 didn't have many takers at the beginning because it was didactic, theory-oriented and didn't emphasize the living, spoken language. Many students found it boring.
Today students are from all over the world, including Western countries, Japan and many other countries.
They learn to say "Where are you from?" "I am Shanghainese" and various useful phrases.
The course makes life easier by helping students communicate with locals. Use of dialect, even a little, is an ice breaker and wins points for the speaker. Dialect is very colorful and gives insight into Shanghai culture, including many customs that no longer exist.
Some out-of-town Chinese also sit in on the dialect class to help them integrate better into city life.
The course became popular in 2006 after it was revised to make it more relevant and focus on spoken Shanghainese. The course launched in 1998 didn't have many takers at the beginning because it was didactic, theory-oriented and didn't emphasize the living, spoken language. Many students found it boring.
Today students are from all over the world, including Western countries, Japan and many other countries.
They learn to say "Where are you from?" "I am Shanghainese" and various useful phrases.
The course makes life easier by helping students communicate with locals. Use of dialect, even a little, is an ice breaker and wins points for the speaker. Dialect is very colorful and gives insight into Shanghai culture, including many customs that no longer exist.
Some out-of-town Chinese also sit in on the dialect class to help them integrate better into city life.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
