Although Mandarin is spoken by almost everyone in China, it only became the official language in the 1930s and each region has its own dialect. The hundreds of Chinese dialects are commonly regrouped under ten categories: Mandarin, Cantonese, Jin, Wu, Hui, Min, Ping, Hakka, Gan, and Xiang. Each group also has a number of sub-dialects. It is also worth noting that the concept of a “dialect” is different from accents as commonly known in the English language, though accents do arise within dialects due to regional differences.
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