Essential Mandarin Chinese phrases

Hello. Universal and always safe. Shanghainese speakers say 侬好 (nóng hō) among themselves, and using it once will get you a smile.

Thank you. Said far less often between close colleagues than English speakers expect — over-thanking a friend can read as creating distance.

Temporary residence registration — the police slip you must obtain within 24 hours of moving into a private address. Asked for at every later immigration step.

The neighbourhood police station. Where the registration above is done, and the first place to go for anything address-related.

Residence permit — the document that actually lets you live here. The visa in your passport is only an entry document.

'Scan the code'. You will hear this constantly — menus, payments, registration, building access. A working phone is infrastructure here, not a convenience.

The Chinese national ID card. You do not have one — you use your passport plus residence permit, and some apps still assume the 18-digit ID format.

Food delivery, and a genuine pillar of daily life in Shanghai. Meituan and Ele.me deliver almost anything within thirty minutes.

'We' or 'us' in Shanghainese, and the word people use to mark themselves as Shanghai natives. You will see it in shop names all over the city.

The official tax invoice. Ask for one at restaurants and shops if you expect to claim anything back — an ordinary receipt will not be accepted by any employer.

Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119, traffic accidents 122. Separate numbers, not one emergency line. Note that Chinese speakers say 'yāo' rather than 'yī' for 1 when reading digits aloud.