To elaborate, there's formal written Chinese (which is close but not identical to spoken Mandarin) and then there's written Cantonese (or other dialects), which

To elaborate, there's formal written Chinese (which is close but not identical to spoken Mandarin) and then there's written Cantonese (or other dialects), which is writing the characters as they would be spoken verbatim. Written Chinese is used for anything official or formal, written Cantonese is often used online informally (like using text/SMS language in English)