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Also Cantonese seems to use a word like diem to refer to time.

Another false cognate, I'm afraid.

The closest I can find to your diem meaning "time" in Cantonese is dim (see http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/search/?searchtype=4&text=time). This dim actually comes from the word for "point", and is used not for "time" in general, but in set expressions like gei dim "what time", literally meaning "what point (on the clock)", or zung dim "hour, on the hour", literally meaning "chime point (on the clock)" > "the point on the clock when the bells chime" > "on the hour".

Consequently, it can be pretty quickly demonstrated that Cantonese dim and Latin diem ("day") have exactly schmotz to do with each other. :)

Cheers,

Or, "At the end of the day, this is one ugly boy."

Oh yah see also these compound cantonese words:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/468/?full=true

For example:

Cantonese: m4 hou2 juk1 (typically shorted to "moh yook") = don't move (you'll hear/see this used in those Hong Kong cop shows ;) )
Mandarin writers would typically use a different bunch of characters to express that (bie dong?). I doubt they'll write "not good (to) move", even though a direct translation would probably be something like that.

There is indeed "written cantonese", but yes a lot of it is similar to written Mandarin.

FWIW, I'm not expert in Cantonese or Mandarin, so you'll probably get better info from someone who knows both well.

There's written Cantonese that's not the same as written Mandarin.

See: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/468/

And that word is common in Cantonese.

The Chinese mainlanders might no longer be as aware of the differences due to the Chinese Government trying to get everyone to standardize on Mandarin (down to making everyone use Mandarin names), but that's not so true elsewhere.

As for Taiwan, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoy_dialect#Negative_particles
e.g.
"Bo" in Amoy/Hokkien (one syllable) can be two words in Mandarin- "mei yo", or one ("bu") depending on the situation.

"not", "can not" are "mm" and "bay" in hokkien respectively, but the same word in Mandarin ("bu").

So officially they might be the same, but in practice it's not so simple.

The written language is more like a different language that the non-Mandarin users shoe-horn their spoken languages into when the time comes for writing stuff down :).

Even the Japanese used Chinese characters in the past (and still use some nowadays). And what they wrote/write with it was not always the "One Chinese Written Language".

In fact Frosty Post AC has a point.

Chinese speakers (at least in Beijing) often use the word é£ä (neige) as a filler word; much in the same way as 'uh' or 'er' are used in the English language.

For anyone with no understanding of the Chinese language will often be confronted by the words 'nigga, nigga' when walking on the streets of Beijing.

See this page for a real-world example of this.

I think it is good, maybe it could say 'this doesn't mean what you think it means', spell out 'forty two' or a 'first shirt' as well.

Such a simple idea that only certain people will see.