english: our words are pronounced normally except when they arent
japan: hold my sake

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always figured the the purpose behind Chinese characters was to be intentionally complicated and hard to learn in order to keep the common people illiterate. When you have to spend literally your entire education continually learning new characters, something isn't right. A thought experiment I like to use: take an average 8-year old American and Japanese kid, give them a copy of Shakespeare in their native language. The American kid can follow along just fine. He may not know the meaning of a lot of words, but he can at least sound them out. The Japanese kid on the other hand is fucked without furigana.