Just had a brief but interesting linguistic exchange in a taxi. The driver was talking to us in Shanghainese. We were responding in a mix of Shanghainese and Mandarin. At one point the conversation veered off into what follows.

Driver (in Shanghainese Wu): … You said XX road near XX road, right?
Friend #1 (in different Wu dialect): Yeah, XX and XX.
Driver (in Wu): So… if I speak in Shanghainese, can you understand?
Us (in Mandarin): Yes / Yeah / Just can’t speak it.
Driver (in Mandarin): That’s ok. If I spoke in English you wouldn’t be able to understand it.
Driver: “bala bala chashy malagaba gaba. pasha katoo batabatee mala mala mala.”
Us: … ?
Me (Mandarin): Um… this is us up here.
Friend #2: (Wu): Yeah stop up here.
Driver (“English”): zang kayoo mala machee.

That is, “thank you very much.”

Clearly done in jest. At any rate, always interesting to see what English sounds like to non-English speakers.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the recorder running for this, and by the time I got my phone to the right setting, it had mostly passed. His English gibberish was truly priceless.