What does Japanese do if they don't know how to read a kanji

[watermen]

If you don't know how to read an English word, most people will just find a way to make up a pronunciation. But in the case of kanji, how does Japanese do that?

[QuackingShoe]

Make up a pronunciation.

Or use a dictionary, or ask someone, or just not care about it at all. I don't even bother trying to pronounce a lot of words in English.

[Yamanchu]

They check the dictionary, which will give them the hiragana/katakana reading. While they may get the intonation wrong, unlike in English, they can't get the sound wrong.

[Javizy]

They can make up a pronunciation too, since they know kanji. 90% of the time it'll be right, so it's probably more reliable than guessing English pronunciation from the whacky spellings.

[Yamanchu]

Javizy, they check a dictionary and get the kanji spelt in hiragana. There is no need to guess anything.

[Javizy]

Javizy, they check a dictionary and get the kanji spelt in hiragana. There is no need to guess anything.

If you could guess the meaning and the reading from the kanji, which is pretty common, then why would you bother looking the word up? I don't bother doing it half the time, and I usually have a dictionary handy, which I doubt most natives do. I use the word guess, but it's a far more reliable process than that implies. It's also an essential skill, as you'll often see kanji combined into words that you won't even find in a dictionary (should you bother to try).

[QuackingShoe]

Yeah, errr, I usually don't look up words unless I'm really curious in Japanese, and I never do in English - especially not for pronunciation. So I highly doubt Japanese individuals jump to a dictionary on a regular basis, especially considering that, before the advent of the electronic portable dictionary, looking up anything in a Japanese dictionary was murder.

[Essential_Japan]

If a Japanese person is reading aloud and they run into a kanji they don't know, they might say something like "何々" (Nani-nani) to keep the flow going while they read.

Otherwise, when reading silently most people will tend to skip over (飛ばす) kanji they can't read just like English speakers skip over words we don't know or can't pronounce, since they can usually get the "gist" of the meaning from the overall sentence.

[Taurus]

If you could guess the meaning and the reading from the kanji, which is pretty common, then why would you bother looking the word up?

I'm sure you know about it, but there's actually a Japanese gameshow where they have to do exactly this. They have teams of celebrities and one celebrity (I think the one considered the least intelligent) will be shown a series of sentences or words featuring difficult kanji. The other team members have to guess what the kanji are from their garbled attempts to read them.

There's another round where all the celebrities select ingredients that are listed in Chinese, and then these ingredients are put into a milkshake for one of the other team members to drink and identify the ingredients. Because the meanings of Japanese kanji can be very different from the meanings of the Chinese characters, they usually end up with ingredients like fish oil and stuff.

Quality telly!

[Jessi]

I'm sure you know about it, but there's actually a Japanese gameshow where they have to do exactly this. They have teams of celebrities and one celebrity (I think the one considered the least intelligent) will be shown a series of sentences or words featuring difficult kanji. The other team members have to guess what the kanji are from their garbled attempts to read them.

I've seen this segment before! I love these different Japanese language quizzes that they do on variety shows. It's reassuring to see native speakers have trouble with their own language... or maybe discouraging, I'm not sure

The second game sounds genius

[Tangram]

It really depends on the situation.

If he is in school, say sixth grade, and is reading a children's or young adult's book, furigana will be provided. These are small kana placed above or beside each kanji. The student could simply read the word from the furigana. If he is reading a standard book and there are no furigana, he would go through a similar process as an English student. Try context clues, see if he can read the sentence without that word, and then ask an adult or check a dictionary.

An adult is not going to come across many kanji he can't read. Any kanji that is not taught in school will have furigana over it in the newspaper and in most literature.

[jazzbeans]

I guess kanji by context sometimes, just as I do with English words. I cannae determine how it's said though, but believe me.. I can't do this with English either! EVERY new word I encounter in English, I fail at pronouncing. It's so embarrassing...

[Shant]

I live in Taiwan 50% of the time and Japan the other 50%. I asked the same question to my Chinese friends because there is no phonetic way to look up Kanji. They showed me how a Chinese dictionary is divided. First by Root Kanji character and second by stroke count. I used a paper dictionary for about a year and I got pretty good at it.

[ShadowzKiller]

I live in Taiwan 50% of the time and Japan the other 50%. I asked the same question to my Chinese friends because there is no phonetic way to look up Kanji. They showed me how a Chinese dictionary is divided. First by Root Kanji character and second by stroke count. I used a paper dictionary for about a year and I got pretty good at it.

Paper dictionaries are actually better to use. To speed up the process, you can memorize the stroke order and total strokes. This will force your brain to memorize Kanji and it allows you to quickly find Kanji based on total strokes. Also, if you memorize stroke orders you learn the radicals as well which is another way to look up Kanji. Fortunately, the Kanji book I have allows you to look up by total strokes and then by radicals. I just recently started doing this and it is quite effective.

In the case of Japanese language, I imagine some people forget how to pronounce a single Kanji, simply because there are various ways to read each one. However, if they see it in combination with another Kanji or Hiragana I am sure they can read it with no problem.

[goulnik]

It doesn't seem to be the case in Japanese, but there are some clues in Chinese, albeit limited. Much as with kanji, most hanzi are made up of a radical and a phonetic component (of which there are about 900). These will typically refer to archaic pronunciation, and certainly won't include any indication about the particular tone, something that is key in Chinese. But in the absence of a dictionary, it's a start.
It's also funny that the Chinese would skim over and read 怎么怎么样 (怎麼怎麼样), much as nani-nani in Japanese