While the Sinitic languages are similar, they definitely have distinctions not only in pronunciations but also in grammar and vocabulary, even if you do approxi

While the Sinitic languages are similar, they definitely have distinctions not only in pronunciations but also in grammar and vocabulary, even if you do approximate the writing using Mandarinized characters. Just as an example, the placement of adjectives in Cantonese vs Mandarin differs. Consider the sentence "I eat first": - Mandarin: 我[subj] 先[adv] 吃[v]。 - Cantonese: 我[subj] 食[v, Cantonese equivalent of 吃] 先[adv]。 Another example is that some terms that exist in one Sinitic language simply do not exist in another one, e.g. the word for "good night" in Mandarin is 晚安, but there is simply no way to say this at all in Wu (e.g. Shanghainese, Suzhounese) Chinese! I find that a lot of Mandarin speakers aren't aware of this due to the extensive Mandarinization of Sinitic languages as a whole, and there are a lot of distinctions between a lot of them (e.g. Min Chinese is a lot more closer to Old Chinese and preserves a lot of its traits compared to Mandarin), and perhaps this is a testament to the point the article makes.