Alphabet in Chinese

This constantly kills me. I have to book hotels for our customers and guests when they come here. That means I have to spell English names to a bunch of non-English speaking desk clerks. Thank God they can all understand the English alphabet—just not when I say it.

You see their pronunciation of the letters is different than ours. So when I say “n” they think I am saying “m” because they pronounce “n” as “unn.” L is not pronounced as l; instead it is pronounced as “llo” (like the ending of hello or “l-o”). X is not x it is “eck-kuh-suh.”

So when I book hotels it usually takes two times telling the clerk over the phone and one time to fax back the corrections on the badly mangled spelling they fax to me.