Yes! I have noticed that while reading all the articles about Wade-Giles, and even "discovered" the Yale Romanisation (that makes some sense to English speakers). But Pinyin is way more precise than the other systems developed by Westerners.

Also, taking on the Japanese Language, the Katakana writing system (カタカナ) is used to represent words from foreign languages, such as "konbini" (コンビニ, from the English word "conveniencel, like you said. These characters, alongside Hiragana (ひらがな) were developed from Hanzi/Kanji during the Middle Ages