Not all Chinese dialects are created equal...

So yesterday I met some students in my building and we talked in a mix of English and Mandarin, as they were from Mainland China. We all will need to learn to speak Cantonese! It's interesting how I hear some say that Cantonese and Mandarin are 'dialects,' when it seems most of the time the speaker of one can hardly understand the speaker of the other language. Even the writing is different; yes, they even use different Chinese characters!

OK, so some are similar, like the following, which means 'hello' in both C and M ('you good?')
你好
However, they are pronounced differently: C = Néih hóu      M = Nǐ hǎo


Thank you: C = 唔該. M̀h'gōi.   M = 谢谢。 Xièxiè.


To make matters more complicated, Hong Kong (as well as Taiwan) uses traditional characters, while the mainland uses simplified. 


Simplified  会   
 ...and not quite so simple  會
did I mention they are pronounced differently, too?




Well, this should be fun!