• hdzki@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    Except this isn’t really a problem in chinese. Sure there are many homophones but in general. Most 漢字 have one to two readings. Using your example, 人 is rén and 生 is shēng in 普通話. Meanwhile 重 can be read as zhòng or chóng. I’m not sure if this applies to the other languages in the sinitic family.

    As for japanese the sheer number of kun readings is to Japanese overloading the few “simple” kanji to represent many words, it’s also not a real issue as almost always see okurigana to hint towards which specific reading you are using e.g. 生む vs 生える. Or the context informs which reading as in 生卵, i.e. the なま reading is only used as a prefix and so on.

    The problem only kinda worsens with reading reforms as peoplr start the pack the simpler kanji with more readings when they’re used instead of the proper character. E.g. 函数→関数, both are read かんすう but the right is prefered because 函 is non 常用漢字

    Native speakers and language learners alike build an intuition for the whole “Which reading should I use?” problem.