User blog comment:JapaneseOPfan/Lesson 12 or something (Pronunciation)/@comment-5690257-20150813233932/@comment-26082375-20150813234414

Aforementioned kanji alphabet is the reason why I'm verbally fluent in Chinese but illiterate. 8D That said, each Chinese word is basically a picture, with the more complicated words being a combination of little pictures. I'd recommend learning the radicals; most of them have their own meaning and can influence the meaning of the entire word.