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well, i know some are just bizarre. but i'm willing to wager there's more similarity between, say, how the hokkaido natives and okinawa natives speak japanese--akin, i'd wager, to the edinburgh accent and the chicago accent--rather than the cantonese and mandarin languages.
I think it's really too bad different Chinese languages are usually referred to as "dialects", which gives the idea that they can be mutually understood to some degree.
I would say that the difference between Shanghainese and Mandarin is greater than the difference between French and Italian, but less than the difference between French and German. The difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is, I think, about as great as the difference between French and German.
For those who may not be aware, China has scores of dialects. In this part of the country, most cities of any size have their own "dialect". Locals from Suzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo cannot understand each other when speaking their primary tongues. It's really interesting, linguistic differences vary with distance and size of city. Smaller ("smaller" in Chinese terms), neighboring towns may have major overlaps in their local languages.
Of course all this is tremendously frustrating to the foreigner struggling to speak Mandarin! The variations in accents you encounter are daunting.
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