true. unless youre old 
Ask an old person to say 去 or 費 or etc. Seems widely accepted their special pronunciation Only clearly “non taiwanese” get called out usually.
It would be funny though if people started saying Bingtung.
Definitely agree that the acquisition of a “native accent” isn’t a worthwhile or even an attainable goal in most cases. Still, there are some places in the world where there’s a tendency for locals to insist on reverting to simplified English as soon as they hear an obviously foreign accent — regardless of how fluent the speaker otherwise is.
I think it was simply T’ for T and T for D, then they dropped the ’ and it became T for T and D.
Everyone should be able to say Tāi-pak
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I can’t hear a difference between the “b” in Taipei, when spoken by a native Mandarin speaker and the “b” in English when spoken by an English speaker. But my ears need a cleaning, so…
Lots of people can’t, but the “b” in Taipei is unvoiced.
Which means absolutely Zero to me… LOL
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In English, “b” is voiced (making sound with vocal cords) and “p” is unvoiced. The “p” in Taipei is unvoiced, but it sounds more like a “b” to most Westerners because it’s less aspirated.
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So there is a difference between
Mandarin: Bei and English: Bay?
Can’t wrap my head around this one.
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Think the difference between Pier and Bier in German. The p here is aspirated, but if you remove the aspiration, the only difference between the two would be you vibrate your vocal cords when you say b before getting to the vowels.
I understand the difference between p and b, but not the one between Mandarin B and English B
背 and bay sounds slightly different to me. There is less aspiration for bay as @Dr_Milker said. Although there are enough English accents around that for some of them there is probably no difference.
It’s the same difference. One is voiced and the other is unvoiced.
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If the difference is the same, doesn’t that mean that ㄅ sounds like ㄆ?
Isn’t ㄆ the voiced one, and ㄅ the unvoiced one?
No, they’re both unvoiced. The first is aspirated, the second one isn’t. It just sounds like a “b” because the lack of aspiration makes the sound softer.
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Eureka! So there is a distinction between aspirated and voiced.
I will listen closely to any ㄊㄞㄅㄟ and ㄆㄧㄍㄨ uttered from now on…
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Here’s an easy way to make the distinction. The p in pie is aspirated. The p in spy isn’t. The p in spy is exactly the same as the p in Taipei (Taipei in Mandarin, that is).
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Btw. I regard all of this as neglectable knowledge. 
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To me it sounds exactly the same, save for the s in front the py.
OK, this could be where your problem lies.
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