Do you dare try the devil's language? Most difficult Chinese dialects

might get controversial on this one so let's have it in the pit!
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/21/do-you-dare-try-the-devil-language-chinas-10-hardest-dialects/

Do you dare try the devil's language?  for those that can't open the link, it basically ranks the most difficult Chinese dialects:

1. Wenzhou dialect

2. Cantonese

3. Suzhou and Minnan dialects

4. Shanghainese

5. Shaanxi dialect

6.  Changsha dialect

7. Sichuan dialect

8. Shandong dialect

9. Tianjin dialect

10. Northeast dialect

I have not been to Wenzhou but i've had more than my share of trouble navigating suzhou and its weird pronunciation. Funny enough, I've had an easier time with Cantonese...

When I lived in the Northeast I could follow what people were talking about, just eavesdropping and actual conversations with locals, within my limited capacity mind you.

That was ten years ago and I was new here, now I'm in Anhui and my Chinese is basic survival level functional.

But, where I live now they speak Wu which leaves my head spinning, completely undecipherable with barely a recognisable word. Why isn't Wu on the list?
Rx

I speak enough Changsha dialect to be conversational but it's not even close to being among the most difficult dialects in Hunan.

There's a small city to the east of Changsha near the Jiangxi border called Liuyang with 4 distinct dialects. I could understand and speak a little of 3 of them but the 4th, South Liuyang dialect, I could never say anything. A lot of gargling sounds I was never able to repeat.

I lived in South Liuyang for 2 years.

Why isn't Wu on the list?

I always thought Shanghainese was a form of Wu.

This list only works one way: if you speak Henan Hua everyone in other parts of China will make life difficult for you.

Note that Suzhou and Minnan are rated equal third. They are 2 different dialects, so actually its a list of the top eleven. So much for the myth about Chinese kids being good at math.

I like Stil's comment about south Liuyang. A given region can have several distinct sub-dialects. For our friends down south, hasn't this often been said about Guangdong?

While this is a fun bit of fluff, it is just a bit of journalistic fluff. The kind of thing a journalist writes because there is nothing else to write about.

Cantonese definitely has it's own dialects.  My lovely wife learned standard Cantonese from watching TV, mostly out of Hong Kong, but has trouble with the local dialects in Dongguan as well as the slightly different version spoken here in the village.