普通话加油! 中文加油! 汉语加油! 不好意思我这不是语言比赛. 粤语也好. 如果你有时间学习中文和粤语. 如果我在香港我学习粤语和汉语. 现在我学习汉语和东北话.

Without doubt Mandarin is used in more areas than 粤语. Of course that's not to say that 粤语 isn't useful or cool but it's just not as practical as Mandarin. I'd say that in most cases you'd be better off with Mandarin than with 粤语. Unless of course you want to learn 粤语 to watch movies from Hong Kong. It kinda depends on what your goal is. If you want to be able to speak with as many Chinese as possible: learn Mandarin. Hope this helps. 祝你好运！

In fact, the appellation of Taiwanese is partially wrong, because it should be called as "Minnanese" (闽南语/Bân-lâm-gú), 闽南语 originates from the mixed accents of 厦门话、泉州话、漳州话, & 厦门话 accent is closest to Taiwanese, except for some tiny differences. But, unluckily, Minnanese, along with (潮州话/Tiê-chiu-uē), is worthy of the most difficult one among Chinese languages.

Ranking list of Chinese by learning difficulty, From the easiest to the hardest, as follows, 1, Mandarin: modern Chinese, official language in Mainland, Taiwan, & Singapore. 2, Cantonese: preserving a plentiful elements of Classical Chinese, official language in Hongkong & Macao. 3, Minnanese: preserving more ancient grounding in Classical Chinese than Cantonese, not an official language of any countries, but widely spoken in South Fujian, Taiwan, & South-East Asia.

I really doubt about Harregarre's natioanality because his answer is so good:) Yes, Chinese Mandarin (In China we call it Putonghua, means standard language, which compares to those dialects.) I suggest you should learn Mandarin first, just as they said. With Mandarin you can visit almost all round China, also available for the Southern China like Guangdong. Cantonese has its advantages, especially in business affairs. If you want to run your business in Guangdong, Hongkong. You will get suprising benefits from Cantonese. Believe me. People living there are famous for their wealthy, clever, creativity, and great enterprise. According to the data I have: In Canada, it (Cantonese) is the third most widely-spoken language. (First two are English & Francais) In United States, it is also the third (First two English & Espanol) In Socceroo (I like this name, although it's not formal), it is the second. Also, in Southeast Asia, it has great influence among the residents And in the aspect of Culture, Cantonese is more like the ancient Chinese, which reserved many characters, phrases, grammar structure from the ancient Chinese (Wenyanwen). But one more thing, don't mix Mandarin and Beijing dialect by mistake, also Cantonse and other dialects similar to Cantonese. Recently, the Chinese govt. is promoting Mandarin around the country. But has side effects is that many dielects are prone to extinct (Young generations only speaks Mandarin, forget their own dialects).