User Comments - smh123

Posted on: Haggling Like a Local

Haggling is a great first lesson. How about "taking a taxi" for the next one? I cannot count how many time I hopped in a taxi and had to have a Shanghainese friend explain everything on the phone in Shanghainese to the driver. I finally learned how to give directions in Shanghainese and never had that problem again. By far, taxi directions would be the most useful.

Posted on: Haggling Like a Local

For anyone dying to get some basic target language in any of the dialects in China, I recommend purchasing the Lonely Planet Essential Phrasebook for "China". It has around 14-15 dialects from the mainland. It's an interesting read for anyone who likes a good laugh too :)

Posted on: Haggling Like a Local

I lived in Korea first and studied Korean, then moved to China and studied Chinese. Korean of course has a lot of "loan words" from Chinese. There was some confusion.

I spoke fluent Spanish for 5 years then moved to Brazil, picked up Portuguese while I was there. No confusion afterward going from either language to another.

For me, the only time there was confusion was when I couldn't think of a word and I was going through the "dictionary" in my mind. Once I am in conversation, I don't mix any of the languages with one another.