I spent probably 3-4 months on the mainland and learned tourist mandarin (200 words?) to get around and I really think its worth the effort and makes your life SO much easier.
I thought I could do the same with cantonese but I started looking into and what the hell 7 tones? In mandarin i can only really get 3 of the tones and wing the other one. I feel that 7 tones honestly would be impossible.
How long does it really take to learn conversational cantonese a a 30something caucasian?
It took me around 4 years of high school spanish and 15 years of on-and-off spanish TV/talking to mexican employees.. to get to the point where I can speak to a mexican and still forget simple words like 'spleen' or 'hexagon' or whatever.. you know. not even fluent as a 8 year old kid. So I'm no linguist.
But I think alot of people (specially americans) are like me and let's be realistic. Maybe I should just make mandarin my next hobby.