Eli5, in written languages that use ideograms, how are people able to correctly pronounce words and names they’ve never seen before?

Question

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.

In: Other

Answer 1

First, written English is far from phonetic. Spanish is more phonetic than English.

Next, how do you know that the letter “a” has a particular sound or sounds? When you’re young, you just learn by copying what you hear other people say around you. Later, when you go to school, you learn that the sound “a” in “cat” looks like the letter “a” and you practice writing it. Then you learn that “a” has other sounds as well depending on placement and history of the word.

I’m more familiar with Japanese than Chinese, so I’ll explain using that. Kids learn words first by copying people around them. Sound familiar? Then they learn syllabaries that represents sounds only called hiragana and katakana. That is the equivalent “alphabet” in Japanese. か is “ka” almost always. They have no inherent meaning on their own. Just like the letter “b” doesn’t hold a special meaning. Anyway, during the same time, kids start to learn basic kanji ideograms that represent concepts and associate a known word with that kanji.

All young kids know that the typical house feline (cat) is called ねこ or ネコ (neko) written in the basic syllabary. Later they learn that there is a kanji as well for “neko”. That ideogram is “猫”. Through practice, tradition, and style, the average Japanese will choose a particular way to express that word when writing.