Learn Shanghainese Wu Chinese

Shanghainese — the Shanghai dialect, Shanghai Wu, a variety of Wu Chinese — is not Mandarin and is not Cantonese, and almost no learning app treats it as a language in its own right. This course does: it teaches Shanghainese pronunciation, vocabulary and sentence patterns directly rather than routing everything through Mandarin equivalents.

The learning path runs twelve units covering greetings, family, food, numbers, time, home, transport, shopping, school, work, health, social life and real conversations. Alongside the vocabulary you get Chinese characters, Shanghainese romanisation, grammar and sentence patterns, and the parts most courses skip entirely — connected speech and tone sandhi, which is where Shanghainese stops sounding like a word list.

Practice is built from interactive vocabulary and phrase lessons, character and meaning drills, pronunciation guidance, grammar and sentence-building exercises, travel-focused language for transport, restaurants, shopping and emergencies, and review activities for words and questions you missed. Daily goals, XP, levels, streaks and achievements keep it to a few minutes a day, and themed packs extend into idioms, informal phrases, business, relationships, etiquette and advanced conversation. The course also runs in reverse for Shanghainese speakers studying English.