What language is spoken in Chengdu?

Mandarin (Putonghua) is the official language, and Chengdu Metro announcements play in Mandarin first and English second. On the street you'll mostly hear Sichuanese (四川话), a Southwestern Mandarin dialect with looser tones that drops the curled zh, ch and sh sounds to z, c and s. As a result, 是 (shì, yes) and 四 (sì, four) sound close, and 十 (shí, ten) slides toward both, which matters at a fruit stall on Jinli or a noodle counter near Wenshu Monastery, where 4 yuan and 10 yuan can blur together. Ask the vendor to type the price into their phone calculator, or use Chinese hand numbers: 6 is thumb and pinkie out, and 8 is an L of thumb and index finger. You'll likely pick up three Sichuanese words within a day: 巴适 (bā shì) means great or comfortable, 要得 (yào dé) means OK, and 莫得 (mó dé) means there's none left, usually said with a shrug over a pot of chili oil that smells of toasted garlic.

In Chengdu, English thins out fast once you leave a hotel lobby. Front desks at The Temple House in Taikoo Li cope well, and so do ticket staff at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Baristas under 30 around Yulin Road often have a go. Taxi drivers speak none, and neither do most vendors along Kuanzhai Xiangzi or the aunties in the Renmin Park mahjong rooms, where the tiles clatter like hail. Didi gets around this: its English interface sends your destination to the driver in characters and auto-translates the in-app chat. Screenshot your hotel's name and address in Chinese characters before you land at Tianfu (TFU) or Shuangliu (CTU), because a romanized street name means little to a Chengdu driver. Google Maps and Google Translate are blocked on Chinese SIM cards and hotel Wi-Fi, and a roaming eSIM gets around the block. Apple Translate and Baidu Translate (百度翻译) work as backups, and Amap (高德地图) gives better Chengdu walking routes than Google Maps, though its English mode is still patchy.

The phrase that saves your first dinner is about heat, not politeness. 微辣 (wēi là) translates as mild, but Chengdu mild will still make your lips burn, so first-timers are better off saying 不要辣 and adding chili from the table jar to taste. The second sensation to understand is 麻 (má), the citrusy, buzzing numbness of Sichuan peppercorn, and 少麻 (shǎo má) asks the cook to go easy on it. For hotpot, order a 鸳鸯锅 (yuān yāng guō): a split pot with clear bone broth on one side and the red, beef-tallow broth on the other, steaming hard enough to fog your glasses. A bowl of dan dan noodles (担担面) costs 12 to 15 yuan, about US$2 at 6.69 yuan to the dollar, so a wrong order costs very little. Pointing at a neighbor's bowl and saying 这个 (zhè ge, this one) works in any noodle shop from Jiuyanqiao to Chunxi Road.

On a 3-day visit, skip the tone drills and don't try to learn characters. Chengdu locals forgive shaky Mandarin tones because their own dialect bends them, so nobody at Heming Teahouse in Renmin Park expects a visitor to read 盖碗茶 (gài wǎn chá), the lidded bowl of jasmine tea on the bamboo table. Learn 谢谢 (xiè xie, thank you), 多少钱 (duō shao qián, how much), and the spice phrases above, and that covers most of a first week. Alipay and WeChat Pay both run in English and currently accept foreign Visa and Mastercard cards, so paying rarely needs words at all. At Heming, the ear cleaners announce themselves by twanging a steel tuning fork, and 不要 (bú yào, don't want) with a shake of the head sends them on.