Don’t know much, but what I do know is that each symbol corresponds to a sound… for the most part.

If you hear a new word, you just listen to the sounds and convert them to a sequence of symbols. That way dictionaries are actually quite helpful and easy to use. Try that with English and you’ll see what I mean.

It works the other way too. If you read a new word somewhere, you can pronounce just like everyone else. Try that with English…