I've had trouble picking up the "sound" however, and really have a hard time telling the difference between MA and MA and MA and MA and MA. It's almost as bad as differentiating among PA, PA, PA, PA, and PA. OMA, I get!
By worrying about the pronunciation of a written word, a person has it kind of backwards. The language is spoken, is ordered sounds. Best to learn Chinese by listening. When I taught English to Chinese students, once in a while the student had no idea what word was meant by the printed word, although the spoken word was well-known.