I grew up in a family that spoke Taishanese (dialect of Cantonese). As I grew older, I stopped being able to speak it although I understand it functionally. Unfortunately, I can’t understand the Cantonese they speak in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. I’m taking college classes in Mandarin right now and I have a pretty good interest in relearning my native dialect… if I learned Mandarin well enough, would it help me at all with knowledge of Cantonese? I know those two languages are fairly different… but still, I still notice many similarities with slightly different tones and pronunciations.
