As a phonetic representation, bopomofo really sucks; even the most obviously similar sounds, don't have similar symbols. Actually, it does not just suck, but given that it was invented 470 years _after_ the Korean Hangul, it is a real shame for the Chinese civilisation.
But then there's the social side of it. Imagine if the only language people around you would speak was C++ or some other horrible, archaic idiom. Wouldn't you still love it! And that's what happened to me: since bopomofo is like an alphabet with about 36 letters, I was able to learn it within a week. And now I am pseudo-literate. I still can't read any signs or menus or anything else, but at least, when I write down a word (i.e. its pronunciation) I can ask people whether I got it right, and I can also ask them to write the pronunciation for me, so I can distinguish all the sounds that I cannot hear. In this sense, bopomofo has been a total success!
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