

Shanghai Metro announcements will be soon spoken in Shanghainese along with the current broadcasts in Mandarin and English, metro authorities reported. The trial operation began with Shanghai Metro’s newest lines, 12 and 16, which opened to the public on December 29.

The two new lines currently have 26 stations under operation. Line 12 runs from Tiantong Road Station in Hongkou district to Jinhai Road Station in Pudong New Area. Transfers can be made to metro lines 4, 6 and 10 at Dalian Road, Jufeng Road and Tiantong Road stations, respectively.

The fastest Shanghai subway, line 16, lets passengers shuttle between the New Pudong area at Dishui Lake Station to Luoshan Road Station, where they can transfer to line 11.

This is the first time Shanghai Metro has adopted using Shanghainese coupled with Mandarin and English to make announcements.

Although Mandarin Chinese is the official language of the region, Shanghainese is spoken by over 14 million people. The dialect is not generally used in education, but recently, movements have been made to protect the language.

It was also recently announced by metro authorities that long, repetitive TV ads would be banned from Shanghai subways.

By Isabel Quan

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