I know kanji have multiple pronunciations, but how are you supposed to know to pronounce them to begin with? Can you just see a kanji character and know how to pronounce it, or do you have to hear it being spoken?
I know very little about Japanese, but this thought just came to mind. Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic, but I don’t understand Kanji pronunciation.
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Generally each kanji has one “usual” reading, from what ive gathered. Youre talking about how do you talk about kanji verbally right?
Well i would guess youd say something like “taberu’s kanji” 食べるのかんじ
You don’t. You write **words** with them. The words are pronounced as they are.
How do you supposed to pronounce symbol “2”? It’s “two” by itself, “seco” in “2nd”, “two hundred” in 235. Weird.
Kanji do have different pronounciations, basically the “Japanese” way and the “Chinese” Way of reading them (very simplified). You know how to read them once you learn the associated words for that kanji and with practice you are also able to guess the correct reading if you see a familiar kanji in a new word.It really isnt that different than you knowing that in english “through” “thorough” “thought” “though” are also spelled very similiar but pronounced wildy different.
[Example](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XVLzDaOYUdk)
you don’t, you pronounce words
letters don’t have meaning or pronunciation outside a word, and even often outside a sentence context
they don’t in english either, otherwise you could categorically tell me for sure what the one, single pronunciation of l-e-a-d is
If you know the Kun-reading for the kanji, you can sometimes guess the pronunciation. Unfortunately, there can sometimes be multiple Kun-readings for a single kanji.
But if your vocabulary isn’t bad, you can often figure out how to read the kanji through Kun-reading and context, because it will be the only word that will make sense.