In the English language, the letters "Z", "X", and "Q" are practically useless but in Chinese pinyin, they are really important. It is nice that these letters are getting a workout and my tongue is finally getting use to them. The X in particular makes a nice "hs" sound, common in Chinese but not English, so I can mostly pronounce the sound and "Z" or "Zh" is really no problem. "Q" however is a bit more of a problem. It fortunately is rarely teamed with u and takes the hard ch sound by itself. But occasionally it is teamed with an u and then I always want to mispronounce it.

But there are still other misunderstandings that can arise. For example, the Pinyin spellings are not consistent. Romanization of the phonetic characters happened at different times and designed by different people so there can be many acceptable spellings of the same word. This happens in English too so I cannot complain when XinYi Road is spelled Xinyi, Xin Yi, and Hsinyi all within a mile radius of the Taipei 101, the world's tallest occupied building. Personally I prefer XinYi because the capital in the middle designated a second syllable to the word , making pronunciation easier for us novices. We won't even discuss the dreaded tones, the bane of life for all Westerners trying to learn Chinese. I don't actually worry about tones because I probably don't know enough yet.

Still, my biggest problem with listening comprehension is that I don't actually hear much Chinese during the day. If I go to the neighborhood grocery, I will hear Chinese and Taiwanese but if I go to Jason's supermarket (Australian) or Citysuper (HongKong), I mostly read and hear English spoken. Our favorite restaurant now had English menus (only two) so we can more easily order when we visit. Everyone at Mark's company speaks English as a condition of employment so they are always polite and converse with me in English. The taxi drivers mostly all understand some English and will play American music when I get into the cabs. The subway gives all destinations and directions in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English. The local cineplex has 18 screens and shows movies in the language they were made in so I see all the movies I want in English.

I guess I'll just have to study harder and try to watch Chinese TV.