I had heard rumours…
Finally, we recognize that in many places in China Mandarin is not the only spoken language. In fact, nearly every part of China has its own local dialect. To address this, and to help foreigners get the most out of their daily interactions here, we plan to launch mini-series focusing on local dialects. We could not have covered these dialects in our newbie lessons, as they do not constitute high-frequency language for Chinese learners (a person in Beijing wouldn’t need to know how to ask for a bathroom in the Xian dialect, for example). Thus they will be (language-focused) extra content aimed at bringing more insight to Chinese life and culture. In honor of the city ChinesePod calls home, we will begin with Shanghainese. We hope to move on to beijinghua and more, but we’ll need your input to help decide which dialects deserve a close look!
That’s from the ChinesePod blog post on what to expect from them this year.
A couple things I noticed based on the 30-some comments to the post: Cantonese is something a lot of people want to see. One persons says something along the lines of “Isn’t it a different language?”, but no one is saying that about Shanghainese. Sad, but not surprising. One commenter wants to see Sichuan hua based on the number of people from Sichuan to be found elsewhere. I couldn’t agree more. I can say that because they already said Shanghainese was first.
In case you’re looking for other Shanghainese podcasts, check out MandMX.com for a podcast by M and MX who have been doing these for a while now. They tend to be short little bursts of phrases but it’s a good way to hear some of the more common phrases of Shanghainese spoken in a controlled environment.
Can’t wait! Also, keep your ears peeled for familiar voices.:)
Familiar how? Have you been learning Shanghainese?
OH NO. We’ve got competition!!! THIS TOTALLY SUCKS! Actually…thanks for bringing this to our attention. I wonder if the lessons will be on the pay side or the free side. (My subscription just ran out!) Thanks for the mention.
I think these are on the pay side of things.
Hey maybe this will be good for you. Maybe after the CPod series ends people will come to you looking for more.
That will be a big let down because I’m sure Chinesepod will do things in their typical awesome manner with Shanghainese Pinyin and all that jazz. I’m currently working on some other type of podcast now… but who knows.