The Mandarin Language.

Can we dicuss for one second how crazy this language is? It has almost been a month and I am still completely clueless is to what everyone is saying.... John is getting much better but I have been told to just stop trying and listen. So, I have and I hear a lot of 'nigga' and 'whoa' and nasal sounds, so I'm like Whoa, nigga(actually like nu guh but when said fast I giggle a little)!  But then when I try again to recreate what I have heard... people laugh or give me looks.
Liiiiiike when we were shopping for furniture I had asked Yating (Matt's girlfriend) how to say "thank you" which is "shea shea" but with kinda a z sound. So I start saying it to shop owners who then give me a discusted look. Yating runs up behind me to correct it, apparently I was saying peeing (she she). I made this mistake about 4 times.  
Last weekend, John and I ventured out to a restaurant and with John's great mandarin skills he orders, chow phan (we thought this was rice).  The waiter pauses and looks at us and asked if we want bi fan(white rice).......but funny enough...if you ask for chow fan under the right context apparently it means sex.  Sooooo this word has to be very carefully noted because it depends on where you say it.  Obviously in a restaurant it means fried rice, but other places.... What did we learn out of that experience? Bi phan means regular olllll' rice and that is safe!
Other interesting words-
MAYO= no have, none...... so no mayo! hahahaha!
Boo-ka-ee= no way, not possible
Chi gua= watermelon :)
How= good and yes
Doe shao= how much
and that's about what I know besides the numbers. ANNNNNND lemmie tell ya how crazy the numbers are, if an object is a different shape the number word changes. So two is, ER, but if you are talking about a pencil(or some other object that there are two of) its Liang. And they also like to throw a GA at the end of the numbers which I think means some.
3-SAN-GA, 2- ER-GA, 8-BA-GA
Its sad to say but I have become one of those tourists that asks for everything in english, including menus BUT the alternative would be running around Taipei asking about peeing and sex so I don't care that much :) I figure if I average learning five words a month, that's like 50 in a year so that's decent right??? Naaa, I'm gonna start taking classes to help with the sounds.

My first Chinese characters!! 

And I know how to write and recognize tree, big, and numbers!!