1. No. Not unless they speak each other's language. 2. In Mainland China, they use Mandarin. In Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the mother tongue, Mandarin is currently being taught in the schools as a second native language, so soon we will see a generation of Mandarin speakers. There will be no more communication problems. 3. Yes and no. Most of the bigots are Cantonese speakers and most belong to the older generations. The younger generation is not bothered by this stuff at all. 4. Neither. They are two different languages that arose in two different areas simultaneously. Now wait for the flaming to start.

1.Mandarin speakers may not understand Cantonese.But Cantonese can understand Mandarin . 2.They will communicate in Mandarin. 3.The local Cantonese people speak Cantonese. So they think Cantonese is more nature. And Mandarin speakers may not understand Cantonese. Actually, have lots of dialects in China, and all of the dialect speakers can understand Mandarin, But Mandarin speakers may not understand dialect. I think that they will not do not like speaking each others' language. 4. I think it's better to learn Mandarin first. Because the mandarin is the official language in China, Cantonese people can understand it. If you learn Mandarin, you can go everywhere in china. I think they are the same language in the ancient times.(You can discover that in Cantonese has the ancient Chinese grammar.) .Cantonese evolved from the ancient Chinese, it development has gone through a long process. You can get some information in this website. http://baike.baidu.com/view/57525.htm

1. Do Cantonese and Mandarin speakers understand each other? That depends. Some can and some cant. No absolute answer to this question. 2. What language do they use when they meet or how do they communicate among them selves? That depends too. If A , whose mother tongue is Mandarin, meets his friend B, whose mother tongue is Cantonese, A will speak Cantonese if his friend is poorer in Mandarin than he is in Cantonese. Vice versa. And if both of them are fluent in both languages, then speak either of the two languages will do. 3. I have heard that they do not like speaking each others' language. Is this true? Not really. I am from mainland China and i just love Cantonese so much. There're also very much people dont like one another's language. But as far as i am concerned, people from the South like Cantonese more than the people from the North. I am from the South and actually my mother tongue is not Mandarin but our own local dialect which is of lots similarities with the Cantonese. 4. Which do YOU think came first, Mandarin or Cantonese? Neither of them comes first. When i am at school i speaks Mandarin; when i am at home i speak my local dialect with my parents; if i meet people speak Cantonese, i think i'll speak Mandarin cos i can understand Cantonese but i cant speak and if he or she cant understand Mandarin then i suppose i'll try English and if it still didt work then i'll just say byebye to them. lol！！！

Good questions. We need to narrow the definitions of "Mandarin" and "Cantonese". Mandarin will only refer to the current national standard modern Chinese language below and since I am not quite familiar with C, C will only stand for the standard popular Cantonese today. 1. Hardly any, if the M never hears Cnese and the C never hears Mn. Quite different languages. One thing you might not know is that even C itself includes an amount of different dialects, which's to say a C speaker even might not understand another C speaker well. 2. Today most educated Cnese can speak more or less, sloppy or decent Mn. But very few non-Cnese are able to understand or speak Cnese, so, you see. In the past, I gotta tell you brother, it was a mess. A well-known historic figure, an official from C came to visit the emperor, and the emperor said: What the h are you saying! Among selves, native tongues. C speaks C, M speaks M, but the problem is, it doesn't seem that there are some bunch of people on earth, who speak M (the perfect standard Chinese language) natively. The most close group is claimed to be Beijingese though. Studies suggest that most Chinese, generally comparing, speak M with somewhat a bit of dialectal accent, even though they're said to be taught M since they are born, urban Chinese generally speak much better M than the rural; northern (roughly except north-western) Chinese speak M much standarder than the southern. The youth speak much better than the aged. I mean manner of course there're sure large speakers speak perfectly standard M (普通话) through receiving good education, training themselves hard and so on.

囧~！