Happens all the time to Japanese people, too. There's a core set of characters that are well remembered, then there is a set of characters that you can remember

Happens all the time to Japanese people, too. There's a core set of characters that are well remembered, then there is a set of characters that you can remember most strokes of (so that someone else can read it) and then there's the stuff where you just have no idea. Of course, you _can_ escape to Hiragana if you're so inclined, but then you would show that you don't know the character - so it's just avoided. Ambiguity is king in Japan.