Japanese use of Kanji is usually more similar to Cantonese (Cantonese is a much older language than modern Mandarin)

So in Mandarin you wouldn't find people using 食 as a verb, but in cantonese it is the correct verb.

In Cantonese it's pronounced something like "sekk"

("sihk" in Yale romanisation, but I think if you're not familiar with Yale you'd try and read that "sick" or "sikh")

Edit: "sikh"

Not to mention that Mandarin would use 嘴（里）rather than 口

The pronunciations of kanji correlate to different Chinese eras and areas.

The usage and choice of characters are influenced by Classical Chinese, which was the literary language in Japan until, uhm, recently-ish.

There is a very good recent YouTube video that explains the usage of Chinese characters in Japanese and which I recommend to anyone interested in the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3MRMBjd20

I was very impressed by the accuracy and knowledge displayed, as most of what is written and said on the subject is ehhh somewhat disappointing.

I've never learned Japanese, nor spent much time there.

From my brother who studied Japanese for a while, the Kanji was a real blocker for him. So I did wonder what it'd be like, given I already know a good amount of Chinese characters.

I guess this video answers that question:

Even more confusing.

Yes, 食 is a verb in Cantonese and Hakka! Both of them are more close to archaic Chinese than Mandarin.

As I understand Hakka is actually a collection of languages, not necessarily mutually intelligible.

I learned a bit of one dialect from a friend's mum. And the basics were very similar to Cantonese.

Would be interested to learn more dialects once I'm done with Mandarin and Cantonese.

Standard Mandarin (especially Beijing dialect) pronunciation of shí is much closer to the American pronunciation of "sure"†, though, so shít would be pronounced more like "shirt". (Sorry to ruin the joke.)

†IPA something like this: /ʃɝ/

A technical correction. In Mandarin, shí is pronounced very close to the sound of "shi" in ship and "shee" in sheep. You are right that it sounds close to "sure" when it is pronounced by people with strong Beijing dialect.

Um. Modern Standard Mandarin pronunciation is based on Beijing dialect, and it doesn't take a Beijing accent to pronounce it like "sure", that's totally standard. Beijing dialect does feature more erhua than other dialects, but even 哪儿 is considered standard, not specific to Beijing dialect. There are definitely dialects (mostly southern iirc) that pronounce shi as in "ship", but that's not Standard Mandarin. Every television show I've seen, for example, pronounces it like "sure".

Edit: To add a clear example, look at 事. Standard Mandarin would pronounce it "sure", Beijing dialect goes even further and pronounces it more like "shar".

I would argue 事儿, the combination of two characters, are pronounced like "sure", in most Northern dialects. (Speaking strictly, some are dialects and some are accents. Let's skip this difference here since it doesn't matter to the current topic.)

Not all the people in television shows, including talk shows, speak Standard Mandarin. This is especially true in shows produced in the north. They adopt Beijing accent to certain degrees, which, more or less, leads to the erhua pronunciation.

For Standard Mandarin, listen to 新闻联播，the official news program from CCTV.

I notice that for non-native Chinese speakers whose mother tongue is Indo-European language, it sounds erhua pronunciation is easier for them than Standard Mandarin. If erhua pronunciation is pushed to extreme, it is called 大舌头。

Also erhua pronunciation is usually NOT used in very formal conditions, like presentation, etc. Some people regards erhua pronunciation as vulgar, except for very widely adopted cases.

I've listened to 新闻联播, the way they pronounce shi sounds much closer to sure than to ship. It is somewhere in-between, and that vowel is more rhotic in Beijing dialect, but Standard Mandarin definitely still rhotacizes that vowel (especially compared to southern dialects where it isn't rhotacized at all).