The official language of China is Putonghua (people's language), also known as Mandarin. Local dialects, like Cantonese and Shanghainese are also spoken. In major cities there are English-speaking staff in the hotels, and people will often approach you to practies their English. In many placese streets names are in pinyin, romanized versions of the Chinese, which makes it easy to get around with a map.

Try a few phrases of Putonghua: