I first learned Wade-Giles and later in life learned Pinyin. I much prefer Pinyin. But it’s not really meant for me, I guess. I’m given to understand that a good part of the reason for its development was as reform of China’s written language.
My supervisor at work wants to have a contest every day here with me. She was stunned at how much faster I am than she at countring strokes in a Chinese character. I lose on the Pinyin thing though.
When I was in the Vietnamese course at the Defense Language Institute, the weekly drop list was essentially the Infantry volunteer list, at least for the Army students. For the Air Force students, they got to complete a “wish list” form and then sent on their merry way to another Air Force training. I’d heard at the time that for the AF, if they bombed three training schools, they’d be discharged. One of the AF drops ended up as an AF journalist. I ran into her once in Tokyo about eight years later.