> The bottom line is that even for a native speaker, if you encounter a new character, chances are you don't know what it means or how to pronounce it. If it's

> The bottom line is that even for a native speaker, if you encounter a new character, chances are you don't know what it means or how to pronounce it. If it's simple enough, you may guess, but that's it. Native speaker here, this is definitely true. On top of the characters Also, children learn the phonetic alphabet[1] before learning the characters. That's why it takes so long to even read a simple magazine: no one uses the phonetic alphabet outside of lower level elementary school. This article is like the "Learn to read Korean in 15 minutes"[2] but more like "Learn to read 0.01% of Chinese characters in 15 minutes", but interesting nonetheless [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo [2]http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/ http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/