Oriental languages have many differences but the ideogram or character is basically the same as a sight-word.
After going to Japan on business back in the nineties ( I saw Comet Hyakutake from the plane on the polar route, ) I studied Japanese at the community college for a while. I worked at it assiduously, but I can’t say I learned much Japanese. I did learn a lot ABOUT Japanese, though. And of course, a lot of “appreciation”.
They speak of “climbing the Kanji mountain” in the self-help books ( Kanji are the characters. ) Like I say, I hardly learned them, but I could appreciate that our paltry 26 letters must seem like binary code, or something, if you’re used to them.