Characters do give a lot of semantic information than an alphabet and it's definitely easier to learn new words through context if you can see the characters vs

Characters do give a lot of semantic information than an alphabet and it's definitely easier to learn new words through context if you can see the characters vs just hearing them. Knowing Chinese characters is closer to knowing not only the alphabet but also understanding most basic English words plus Latin/Greek stems like auto (self), locus/loco (place), -ous (possessing or full of -), etc. From that base it's pretty quick to learn longer words and there are tons of clues to help you remember them.