You&#x27;re right that some aspects of logographic languages can hint at meaning and pronunciation, but those are still just hints. The only way to be sure is to memorize.<p>Take your example of 仲. How is that pronounced? In Japanese, 人 is typically pronounced &quot;jin&quot;, &quot;nin&quot;, or &quot;hito&quot; depending on context. 中 is usually pronounced &quot;chuu&quot; or &quot;naka.&quot; How do I know these things? Rote memorization. While I can recognize that 仲 contains 人 and 中, that doesn&#x27;t tell me how to say 仲. The only reason I know its pronunciation is because I memorized it. (In this case, it happens to be the same as 中.)<p>And that&#x27;s just for reading. Writing is worse. Character amnesia is extremely common among native speakers of Chinese and Japanese. From Wikipedia[1]:<p>&gt; Another anecdotal example can be seen during a spelling bee show hosted on CCTV in 2013, where only 30% of participants were able to write &quot;toad&quot; (Chinese: 癞蛤蟆; pinyin: Lài há ma) in Chinese.<p>That sort of thing simply can&#x27;t happen in phonetic writing systems.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Character_amnesia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Character_amnesia</a>