Just that. Written English is phonetic, so I can easily read an unfamiliar word by sounding it out. Even though I don’t always get it right, usually I’m close enough to be understood.
How does this work in Chinese, or Japanese?
Edit – OK, yes I get it! English isn’t really phonetic. It’s just that when I was learning to read and write, our school used a method they called phonics. It must have confused the heck out of most kids, because they abandoned the method soon after, but it worked for me. We had a lot of practice in recognizing the various patterns words can take, and the many exceptions. So for me, who always did very well in English class, words tend to be easy to spell out.
I’m really glad not to have to figure it out as an adult, because I’m sure I’d be just as frustrated as some of you friends are! And I promise you that you are much better at English than I am at your language.
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There’s a half-joke in Chinese that goes “if there’s a side part, read the side part, otherwise read the middle part” (有邊讀邊，沒邊讀中間).
For example, the characters 清 and 青 are pronounced the same, as are the pairs 授 and 受, 佈 and布, so the rule works for some characters. In all three cases, the radicals (parts of a character) on the left side are sort of like modifiers applied to many different characters, so the pronounciation is determined by the right radical.
But it doesn’t work with 讀 and 賣, 填 and 真, and many others. For an extreme example, cigarette butts is 烟蒂 (approximinately “yen di”), but if you pronounced it as 因帝 (“yin di”) it would sound exactly like a female body part.
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