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Hypothetically, if you are applying to college, could you list English, Chinese, and Cantonese?
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Yes. Cantonese and Mandarin share the same origin and develop independently. That is the same to how Germany and English are two languages.
The main reason for the confusion is that "Chinese" is ambiguous. "Chinese" usually refers "Modern Standard Chinese", which is the standard form of Mandarin. However, "Chinese" can be a collective term for "Chinese languages", which are all languages which originate from old Chinese, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Wu, etc.
If you speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, you obviously can recognize that they are different, but related, languages.
Yes, 100%
Do you consider french and spanish different languages?
Just don't say "Chinese", the more specific you can be, the better it sounds, the more precise it is, and the more it will be respected.
Yes, Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin Chinese are two separate languages.
Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin Chinese are both Chinese Languages, so it would be best not to use "Chinese" in your example.
How different is Cantonese from mandarin? Is it easy to learn if you know mandarin
Cantonese is a related and completely different language. It's like German and English
English, Mandarin, Cantonese.
Yes, they’re different languages.
Linguistically, yes. Politically, no.
But written-wise, everyone writes Standard Chinese, with some dialectal idiosyncrasies. Just take a newspaper from Hong Kong, vs one from Beijing and it should be evident.