Can Cantonese speakers understand Japanese?

No, Cantonese is much closer to Mandarin, and hardly close to Japanese at all. I speak all 3 languages but my Japanese is very elementary.

Can Chinese Korean and Japanese understand each other?

No. There is no dispute about their origins; they did not come from the Chinese language. What is a fact is that a large part of their vocabulary consists of borrowed Chinese words, which happened during the countries’ historical interaction with each other.

Is Shanghainese mutually intelligible with other languages?

Shanghainese is part of the larger Wu Chinese of Chinese languages. It is not mutually intelligible with any dialects of Mandarin Chinese, or Cantonese, Southern Min (such as Hokkien-Taiwanese), and any other Chinese languages outside Wu.

Why can’t Chinese and Japanese understand each other?

Japanese and Chinese aren’t even in the same language family. Japanese is in a category of it’s own, the closest language maybe being Korean, and they do not have cross understanding. Chinese has many dialects, and even they do not generally understand each other with the spoken language. With the written language however, China has no alphabet.

Why is Shanghainese no longer spoken in Shanghai?

From 1992 onward, Shanghainese use was discouraged in schools, and many children native to Shanghai can no longer speak Shanghainese. In addition, Shanghai’s emergence as a cosmopolitan global city consolidated the status of Mandarin as the standard language of business and services, at the expense of the local language.

Is the Shanghainese language similar to Mandarin Chinese?

Shanghainese is part of the larger Wu Chinese of Chinese languages. It is not mutually intelligible with any dialects of Mandarin Chinese, or Cantonese, Southern Min (such as Hokkien-Taiwanese), and any other Chinese languages outside Wu. Modern Shanghainese, however, has been heavily influenced by standard Chinese.