Twenty texts in the Chinese dialect of Shanghai city are presented as a tool for those familiar with some dialect of Chinese who are learning this variety. The texts, recorded as spontaneous speech, were originally collected for grammatical analysis and have been revised somewhat for print form. They are arranged in approximate order of difficulty, and glossaries and grammatical notes are appended to each text; grammatical notes are intended for the reader who knows another form of Chinese. An English translation accompanies each text. An introductory section recommends a text of graded dialogues in Shanghainese, a dictionary, and a lexical survey to be used in association with these texts. It also contains notes on pronunciation and spelling, tones, and general word classes. An integrated glossary, a grammatical index by keyword, and character texts are also included. (MSE)