昨天在路上走，听到两个中学生模样的上海小姑娘在聊天。
Walking on the road yesterday, I heard two middle-school-aged local girls chatting.
女孩 A：“这周末去不去看那个展？听说很出片。”
(Nyu hai A: Zhe zhou mo qu bu qu kan na ge zhan? Ting shuo hen chu pian.)
Girl A: “Do you want to go to that exhibition this weekend? I heard it’s very photogenic.”女孩 B：“好啊，但我还要准备下周的答辩，卷死我了。”
(Nyu hai B: Hao a, dan wo hai yao zhun bei xia zhou de da bian, juan si wo le.)
Girl B: “Sure, but I still have to prepare for next week’s thesis defense. I’m so stressed out.”
她们全程说的都是标准的普通话，偶尔夹杂着几个网络热词（比如“出片”、“卷”），但我几乎没有听到一句上海话。
They spoke standard Mandarin throughout the conversation, occasionally mixing in a few internet buzzwords (like “photogenic” and “stressed”), but I hardly heard a single sentence of Shanghainese.
这让我有一点点感慨。我小时候，弄堂里到处是“侬好”、“吃伐”，现在的年轻一代，即使听得懂上海话，也很少用来日常交流了。
This made me a little emotional. When I was a child, the alleys were filled with “Nong hao” and “Qik va”. Nowadays, the younger generation, even if they understand Shanghainese, rarely use it for daily communication.
但这并不是坏事。语言本来就是在流动、在进化的。
But this is not a bad thing. Language is inherently fluid and evolving.
现在的上海话里，也融入了很多普通话的新词汇。比如以前我们不说“内卷”，现在大家也会用上海话的语调吐槽一句“卷煞脱了”。
Shanghainese nowadays also incorporates many new Mandarin vocabulary. For example, we didn’t say “involution” before, but now everyone will use a Shanghainese tone to complain “Juan sak le”.
我记录这些场景和词汇，不是为了去“纠正”什么，而是想在这个快速变化的城市里，留下一点点关于声音和生活的切片。
I record these scenes and vocabulary not to “correct” anything, but to leave a little slice of sound and life in this rapidly changing city.
无论你是用普通话、英语还是沪语，只要你能在这个城市里找到共鸣，那就足够了。
Whether you use Mandarin, English, or Shanghainese, as long as you can find resonance in this city, that is enough.