What do people in Shanghai speak?

Mandarin is the standard spoken language in China. To make life even more difficult, locals also speak the Shanghai dialect, or Shanghainese, which sounds very different from Mandarin, although you probably won’t notice for a while!

English is not yet widely understood by locals - your best bet is to speak to someone young if you need help, as their English tends to be pretty good.

If you don’t speak any Mandarin, you’re destined to get lost at some point so please take a business card of your hotel or a copy of the address written down in Chinese so you can show taxi drivers or anyone else that can help you.