Reading character-based Asian languages is really cool in that you look at the characters and your brain responds by directly understanding the idea behind the characters. There is no need to know the pronunciation of the character. Now, even though you may not know how to pronounce every Western word you read either, there is a profound difference: it is rare to look at a word and instantly know what it means, but not be able to say it. It is far more common to be able to pronounce a word, but have no idea what it means, right?