Chinese languages

i speak cantonese but am trying to learn mandarin. in spoken cantonese there is a particle 'di' which can pluralize in a way. i believe that in mandarin chinese one could say '一些' to mean roughly 'some', whereas in spoken cantonese one would say 'yat di'. the particle 'di' can also be added to adjectives to make them comparative in nature: 'hou di' for better, etc.. is the mandarin 些 used in a similar way? could one say 好些 to mean better? and is this common?

You can say "好一些" or "好一点" These are very common ways of speaking and they can be attached to any adjective. I believe "一点" is more common than "一些" but maybe that's only because I live in Beijing. I hope this is helpful, but you probably got an answer by yourself already.

The Cantonese 啲 /di1/ is better translated as (一)些 /yi4 xie1/ than as (一)點 /yi4 dian3/, although (一)點 may sound more natural in some cases:

adj./adv. + 啲 = adj./adv.+ (一)些
有啲人 = 有些人 some people
呢啲 (ni1 di1) = 這些 these
快啲 (faai3 di1) = 快(一)點 sounds more natural, but 快一些 still makes sense

Edit: for the first example, (一)點 may sound a bit more natural than (一)些, but for the second and third examples, (一)點 would not work at all.