Ask Lemmy

I've seen handles in kanji — I assume Japanese, could be Chinese. Some browsers will translate that if they can. At least to something you can say (if you don't know how to say those symbols, that is). For example, people whose first language is English can say "konnichiwa" — the Japanese word for "hello" or "good day" written in Romaji, which is Japanese using the Roman alphabet — but they wouldn't know how to pronounce こんにちは — it's the same word. So you can look at that in my message and say "konnichiwa" out loud, but if you happened upon it in a week and you've forgotten I said this, you probably won't recognise it. But, you can highlight it, long press/right click and search your favourite search engine to find out what it is.

(Side note: I do recognise は which is pronounced "wa." It's part of the title of my favourite film, 君の名は。 (Kimi no Na wa., or "your name.") I also recognise の when I see it. This was the first one I learned — because it looks like a fortune cookie!)