As a fellow aphant from Japan, I resonated with your experience so much! I’ve always felt that for us, learning Kanji isn't about memorizing a "picture," but rather understanding a logical recipe of radicals. Since our brains prefer structural data over visual imagery, the systematic nature of Hanzi/Kanji actually becomes an advantage. This is exactly why I find that I can read Classical Chinese and even get the "gist" of modern Chinese texts just by following the semantic traces of the characters. Interestingly, though, I struggle with Hangul. Even though it’s part of the same cultural sphere, Hangul is phonetic—it's a "sound script." For my aphant brain, it’s much easier to decode logograms (which are like high-density data packets of meaning) than it is to process pure phonetic symbols that don't have those built-in semantic hooks. It’s fascinating to realize that what many see as a "visual" language is actually a "logical" one for people like us!

I have only studied a few Chinese symbols, of which I can only recognize 3 at this point. I've never tried to write Chinese.

As a fellow aphant from Japan, I resonated with your experience so much! I’ve always felt that for us, learning Kanji isn't about memorizing a "picture," but rather understanding a logical recipe of radicals. Since our brains prefer structural data over visual imagery, the systematic nature of Hanzi/Kanji actually becomes an advantage. This is exactly why I find that I can read Classical Chinese and even get the "gist" of modern Chinese texts just by following the semantic traces of the characters. Interestingly, though, I struggle with Hangul. Even though it’s part of the same cultural sphere, Hangul is phonetic—it's a "sound script." For my aphant brain, it’s much easier to decode logograms (which are like high-density data packets of meaning) than it is to process pure phonetic symbols that don't have those built-in semantic hooks. It’s fascinating to realize that what many see as a "visual" language is actually a "logical" one for people like us!

I have only studied a few Chinese symbols, of which I can only recognize 3 at this point. I've never tried to write Chinese.