As mentioned in the last post, I bought a Shanghainese dictionary. It’s pretty much awesome.

The entries seem to be evenly split between having simply the IPA transcription in the case of words or phrases that are the same as in MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin), and those entries which include explanations. Below are examples of each kind as they appear in the book itself.

早饭 tsɔ33vᴇ44

… meaning “breakfast” and …

夹生饭 kᴀ33sã55vᴇ21 （名）煮成的半生半熟的饭。

… which is a rice dish of which half the components are cooked and half are raw. My assumption is that 夹生饭 (MSM: jiā shēng fàn) is a fairly Shanghainese food that hasn’t gained wide popularity outside the delta. But I digress. My Chongming Dao driver certainly knew it well enough. This is also the 夹 entry I mentioned in the last post for which the driver gave a distinctly different pronunciation. But again, I digress.

Another nice feature of the dictionary is the category-based organisation. WIthin each category the order breaks down pretty immediately, for example the “教” section starting with “文化” followed by “新闻” and soon progressing into “笔画” and “书”.

Speaking of 笔画, the index at the end is done in the typical Chinese dictionary searching by radical, but then for each radical it’s broken down not by number of additional strokes as is usually the case, but by the strokes themselves as though you were typing them using the wubi input on your phone. It’s not something I’ve seen before and will take a little while to get used to.

Perhaps the best thing of all is that tones are dealt with in a manner that’s both comprehensive and practical. When the sandhi changes the tone, it’s reflected in the entry, for example in the two entries above where 饭 is first rendered as vᴇ44 and then as vᴇ21. There’s a sandhi chart at the end of the book which explains the rules, but the work is mostly done for you in the way each entry is given.

There’s also a good collection of 成语 at the end. Not a master of chengyu myself, I can’t say if any of them are Shanghai-specific or if they’re just renderings of common phrases. Either way it’s appreciated. The only drawback, if it is a drawback, is that you have to understand enough Mandarin to read the definitions. I don’t personally have much of a problem using a dictionary in order to read a dictionary, especially since it probably helps solidify some of the Mandarin.

In the end I wouldn’t recommend the book for someone looking to learn Wu without learning Mandarin, if there is anyone with such an impractical esoteric approach to life. Though if there is, email me. We should hang out. Otherwise, I’d say this should be a required text for anyone learning Shanghainese.

A quick note on the transcriptions above: The system being used is not standard IPA but rather includes a number of obsolete symbols. “ᴇ” should be rendered as “ɛ” in the current standard and “ᴀ” as “ɑ”. These variations seem to be pretty common in Chinese linguistic words, among a others. The most common one and the only one I think really should have really been left alone is “ɿ” which is now instead “ẓ”, making 子 rendered as “zẓ” whereas in older texts you’ll find “zɿ”, something I find much more intuitive and visually pleasing.