@SoyMagnus @p @SNEK @Zerglingman ever hear Enigma's "Return to Innocence"? Sung by an Amerindian dude in the music video? It's an Taiwanese drinking song.

4 tones isn't so bad. Cantonese has more. And they're pretty distinct provided you can hear them: high tone, rising, low tone, and falling tone. The characters are also fun to write, and even easier to learn for Chinese than say for Japanese where they're much more overloaded with different readings. There's a funny 4chan post somewhere about how terrible it is to know Chinese and deal with Chinese business in the Chinese market, but you'll notice he doesn't bash the language at any point.

"na no ni" doesn't ring any bells though.