Mandarin

No, I'm not talking about the hotel across my office serving a great buffet every lunchtime.
I just attended my first ever Chinese Mandarin language class tonight. Hay. It took so much work to get used to it.
They write something and pronounce it another way. For example, b is read as p in "paw". d is read as t in "tan". I heard some other languages are like that too.
This reminds me of my recent trip to Malaysia. I tried to learn the language because I heard that not too many Malaysians speak English. Here are some of the words I remember off the top of my head.
woman - wanita
man - leleki
right - kanan
left - kiri
taxi - teksi
thank you - terima kasih(?)
push - tolak
coffee - kopi
tea - teh
water - air
welcome-salamat(?)
lane - lorong
danger - awas(?)
The words are read the same way Filipino and most Philippine dialects are read. And some of the words are the same as in Tagalog. It was not that hard to remember words in Malaysia.
I wanted to go to China because it is becoming an influential world economic power. Maybe next year I will be able to go after my Chinese classes are over. :)