As the others have said, native English speakers do not learn to recognize words with phonetics. The English alphabet and orthography is very unreliable and inconsistent, especially compared to Pinyin and even the Latin characters used for other languages like Spanish and Italian. However, our dictionaries do use phonetic transcription. If we're not sure how to pronounce a word (for example, "vexillographer", a word almost nobody uses) we'll look in the dictionary for the pronunciation ("ˌvɛksəˈlɒgrəfər"). A lot of dictionaries use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the symbols consistently refer to the same sound (unlike English where "gh" can be silent, an /f/, and so on). It is a lot to learn, though, but you can go here: http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/ Honestly it's probably not worth the effort. Learn how English sounds first, then learn how to recognize how words are pronounced.

"Admit" would imply that she actually said "Ok, I have a mustache." "Acknowledge" can just mean just to accept a fact, although it also can imply that she verbally admitted it, as well. The meaning is similar and the difference is subtle, so don't worry too much about getting them mixed up. "Admit" is much more common in conversation, with "acknowledge" being more formal or literary. You might hear it more commonly between two radio operators: "Are you receiving this message? Acknowledge." "(The message is) Acknowledged."

You can either say the sentence you said, or you can say: "Unless we convince her to let me bleach it, Tom is going to make out with a lady with mustache." This eliminates the "to be", like you mentioned. You can also say: "Unless we convince her to let me bleach it, Tom will make out with a lady with mustache." "Unless we convince her to let me bleach it, Tom will be making out with a lady with mustache." The meaning is more or less the same, but the sentence you provided (gonna be making) sounds more natural. The others sound awkward. You use "be" because "making" is a gerund, and to use it in this case you need to use "be". "To be doing something" is called the future progressive. It means that you are doing an action in the future that is ongoing, continuous. It's the future equivalent of the present progressive in English ("I am reading" --> "I will be reading"). You can also use "make out" as a simple future tense, though. If it's in its infinitive form, you can just say "going to make out" or "will make out" (dropping the "to"). Hope that helps!

Venice, hands down. Best trip of my life.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to remember new characters is to make up little stories, mnemonics or mental pictures. This is easier if you know what each component part means on its own, and there are books that come with some helpful stories (check out Tuttle's Learning Chinese Characters). But in the end, the only thing you can do to make sure you remember them is to practice, practice, practice, like you've been doing. You need to write them out as well. Stories help you remember what a character looks like, but when it finally becomes ingrained in your mind--when you finally "learn" it--you'll know it by heart and won't need a mnemonic. :) 晚上 (wănshàng) means "evening". 晚 means "late", but I don't have a very good mnemonic for this one. 晚 is also in 晚饭 (wănfàn, dinner). 早上 (zăoshàng) means "morning". 早 means "early" and consists of 日, which is a character for "sun" or "day". Don't you think 早 looks a bit like a SUNflower? So, remember in your mind that sunflowers open up to the sun, EARLY, and that the character looks like a sunflower. Also seen in 早餐 （zăocān, breakfast) It may sound crazy, and there are some who advocate a rote-only approach, but this helps me initially remember characters until I can recognize them intuitively. Once you are exposed to more radicals and phonetics, you'll begin to realize that some characters have helpful hints built in--some characters that contain similar components have a similar pronunciation or meaning. But you'll need to get some more characters and components under your belt first.

Could you perhaps give examples in Spanish that you'd like to say in English?

Are you referring to the Russian R (IPA /r/)? If so, no, Mandarin does not have a trilled R like Russian (or Spanish, Italian, etc). Mandarin's R is much more similar to the English R. It's farther back in the mouth than the English R, though; it is retroflex (IPA /ɻ/). You need to turn your tongue vertical and back upon itself and almost touch the roof of your mouth with the tongue. ZH is in the same place, except the tongue *does* touch the roof of the mouth briefly. Hope that helps.