[steven]

I think to compare one small of that aspect of what you're talking about James, to English might give some insight on what (I think) you're getting at.

With kanji, you usually see them in pairs to make up a word... so a lot of words consist of at least two concepts to give them their meaning. The other day I had a funny conversation where I was talking about 'karate chops' with someone... and that person jokingly said "shutou". I probably did the 'huh' face for a second, to which they replied "shu" as in "te"(手)... and then I concluded it with, "tou" as in "katana" (刀). So by hearing a word you can kind of imagine the kanji. And by understanding the kanji you can imagine (sometimes it can be quite a leap) the meaning. In this case, I perceived 手 as hand and 刀 as like a sword or a blade or whatever. Of course it's like one way of saying 'karate chop'... or like one of those James Bond-esque karate chops.

I think while understanding the roots of English words, a lot of the time that root/modern meaning connection seldom comes into play. You have words that are similar which you can connect, like 'commercial, commerce, commence, communicate, computer, compare, etc.' They all have that 'com' thing going for them so you know they're (or may be) related. I think most English speakers might not give a damn though and don't think about it like Japanese people do with Kanji. However, I've noticed that other European languages share some similar words/word roots (it's a bit late, so excuse my lack of the proper words)... so I think that maybe multilingual Europeans might exercise a similar part of their brain in that respect.

Even though I tried to think about the true meanings of words when all I could speak was English, I never felt my brain work the way it does when I think about kanji (it could just be me though!).

And James, about kids having to learn a whole bunch... I think it comes natural a lot of the time. I think you could almost think of it completely differently... maybe NOT having kanji is harder. I mean, thinking of the real meanings of some English words will get you no where fast. If you think about English from a native Japanese speaker's perspective... all those different pronunciations (word stresses etc) must seem impossible. (think about 'photograph, photography, photon, etc'.) I mean, sure you sometimes get a native speaker who will say a word kind of funny... or maybe a region that says things differently than another... but I think as a native learning that kind of stuff (like all kinds of pronunciation/stresses) is not too different from learning kanji/stroke order/Chinese or Japanese readings. It's one of those things that once you have the basics down, you get that snowball effect going. That's my take on the kanji aspect of what you were talking about is anyways.