To answer the original question:

starting from zero, I'd learn Mandarin and Traditional. Mandarin is more useful in general, and once you learn traditional figuring out most simplified characters is a logical exercise.

My experience - I'm CBC, speak passable basic Canto and studied a bit of Mandarin, which has gone to pot of late... could read a few hundred characters at the height of my powahs.

Others:
- I understand that some linguists consider Mandarin and Cantonese different languages, rather than dialects of the same language. Something to do with the fact that they're mutually unintelligible. I'll let the academics figure it out.

- where to learn Cantonese? Vancouver Community College, UBC and I believe the VSB all offer continuing/adult education courses in Cantonese. You might also be able to go to a Saturday Chinese school with 7 yr old kiddies.

Mandarin is easier to learn for english speakers
The ratio of 'gwai lows' learning mandarin to cantonese is like 10-1

I know a black guy who's fluent in Mandarin. He ended up marrying a Taiwanese girl and their kid is the cutest. Imagine: a mixed Black/Chinese girl who only speaks Mandarin and not a word of english

canto ftw

mandarin, tradition and pinyin ..and u are good to go

Mandarin is more useful to learn. Even if you go to HK, you can get by with mandarin due to all the mainlanders going to HK to shop.

Go to mainland, and anywhere outside Gaungdong province, you are going to need to speak Mandarin. Even inside Guangdong province there are a lot of cities that don't speak Cantonese and now with more people moving to Guangdoing from other provinces, some can't even speak cantonese! I was in Zhongsan and Jiangmen and came across a few people (workers such as those at banks) that can't speak Cantonese. I can't speak Mandarin so it was really tough to communicate with them =/

Mandarin is the official spoken and written language of China

Cantonese is only one of the many spoken dialects (there is not written cantonese...in writing it basically looks the same as mandarin, expcept the difference in traditaional/simplified letters and that they have slangs and stuff)

if you want to learn "Chinese" you probably want to learn Mandarin

"simplified" and "traditional" is really just an easier or more difficult way to write the same letters. but people using either one do not necessarily know how to read the other one..

Cantonese is really just a spoken dialect for a small area of China, just that this small area includes Hong Kong, which is an internationally renown city.

assuming you are western, i am not sure if you can even learn Cantonese from scratch?

because there is really no written form of words, (again its only a spoken dialect)
so i have no idea how can u learn it...u can only memorize the sounds of the sentence

maybe u can learn it sentence by sentece..like for example learn how to converse in cantonese..but this is definitely not the proper way to learn a language.

if you learn mandarin, you can learn to read and write and speak properly...just like any other language.

cantonese and mandarin can almost be considered separate languages since they are both mutually unintelligible.

and whoever said cantonese is a slang is a moron...wtf does that even mean...
and you can write cantonese...there are actually cantonese characters.

I am sure people can learn speaking Chinese from scratch. Have you ever seen some TVB shows? There are french, british, punjabi, and other western actors speaking chinese almost fluenty.

korean. so you can hit on the korean chicks
AHHH SARANGHEE!!! <3
instant chick magnet

my friends white and his mandarins better than mine

he can read characters too

picking cantonese over mandarin is like learning ebonics over proper english. you're better off with the real thing.

cantonese sounds like crap too, like a bunch of ducks wailing.

^
thats just something a mandarin person would say cause they're unable to understand

They mean that the spoken Cantonese language is mostly slang and "improper".

Compare how they speak on the news broadcast vs a television show.

12 years in shenzhen means i speak both.

just telling it as it is brah

if you can speak cantonese, you cant say that you dont enjoy speaking it

i talk pretty black in real life too, but that doesnt mean id advise an esl student to do the same

umm... u should learn manderin if u want to travel. if u learn traditional u will learn more chinese traditional culture. but im canton and i think its fun to learn canton. all of these r ultra hard for people who havent live in china ever. canton is a bit harder, because... i think it has more ways to express a thing. but... there r soo many funny swear words in canton tho~~~ lol

good luck and enjoy:)

thats true. mandarin is easier to learn than cantonese for sure. only 4 tones for mandarin. thats why many cantonese can also speak and understand mandarin but not the other way around.

^
wow
a white guy that can speak cantonese fluently is pretty impressive