I am planning to go to Taiwan for an eight months trip, and need some direction for my studies.
What is the most useful system to learn for learning the phonetics of the characters- Pinyin, Bopofomo, Hanyu Pinyin, etc?
I know they are all useful, but I would like to know what is the most practical for living in Taiwan, and how to start the studies. I will be finished with the first book's 1500 characters, both in writing and reading, but haven't started any listening or speaking.
Can some people weigh in on this?
Thanks

You need to learn Hanyu Pinyin because that's what the whole world uses (including a majority of the signs in Taipei), and I recommend doing that first and learning it very well. But you also ought to learn bopomofo because that's what Taiwanese people know and it comes in very handy here.

In my opinion, you'd be better off learning to speak and understand the language than focusing only on the characters. You can learn characters while you do this, but it will be much more useful to be able to talk to people than to somewhat be able to guess at what signs might mean.

Thank you for a clear reply. I will put in some work on the Hanyu Pinyin. I have the link to Foreign Services Institute sets. I can do some practice with this, but is there a learning system that is more efficient, in your opinion?

In my opinion, the FSI Pronunciation and Romanization module is the best thing out there for learning good pronunciation and getting comfortable with pinyin. Put in the time it requires to really master it, and you'll be glad you did. It wouldn't hurt to do the rest of the course too, although the language is a little dated, because the drills are great for really getting the sentence structures into your head. But you may do just as well with other material if it's more to your liking. I did a review of a lot of the textbooks used in Taiwan on my blog a while back.

I have tried the FSI before and had difficulty concentrating. Now I am on my 6th lesson. I have learned that walking and doing the exercises is a great combination.