There are a lot of Japanese characters in this post, but don't worry, I'm not trying to make you learn Japanese. It should be easy enough to understand for anyone.
I'm going to start out with some of the more trivial things a person studying Japanese language and culture (or just living in Japan) misses out on by not knowing the written language at the pprc (see previous posts) level (or by not knowing it at all). The next part (Part 5) should have a big example among thousands that shows that without the written language, you won't be getting far into understanding the culture at all.
The main Japanese characters (called "Kanji" from now on) each have their own meanings and readings (pronunciation). A single kanji's meaning is usually very broad and encompassing. To create a word with a more specific pinpointed meaning, you combine the kanji characters together. For example, there is a kanji that means "meet" or "meeting." It involves all kinds of meeting, at all levels, any way in which you can think of two people or things or ideas "meeting." If you add this to a kanji meaning "go out," it narrows the meaning to a "rendezvous" or if you add this to a kanji meaning "deliberation," it narrows the meaning to a "conference."
The majority of combinations in Japanese are two kanji put together. Three-kanji combinations aren't rare but are usually for very specific fields (a single kanji is vague and encompassing, together 2 get more specific, together 3 get even more specific) to make a big generalization. Four-kanji combinations are special, usually dealing with a sort of proverbial meaning.
Missing Out:
So, let's imagine a person doesn't understand the written language, and has just "picked up" conversational ability by living in Japan. We'll call him Jack Nova. Jack's Japanese boss tells him that a "CHUUKAI" is necessary for him to keep his job. Unfortunately, Jack hasn't heard this word before. If his boss writes it down, he won't understand. His boss is busy and isn't going to try to explain what the term means. Looks like Jack is going to lose his job.
Let's take a look at what this "chuukai" is. It is written with the two kanji below (chuu and kai):
Let's look at the first kanji (the one on the left). It has a person standing at the left (the long body with a head), and a vertical line with a square in the center at the right. This is only one kanji, but it's a combination of the pieces of two other kanji to form this kanji. So, as you can see, not only are kanji combined to make more meanings, but pieces of kanji might be added to create more specific meanings in a single kanji. So let's break the first kanji down. The left part obviously means "person" and the right part? the square is in the middle of the vertical line, so the right part means "middle." Below are the two kanji from which this kanji (chuu) comes. Note that the shape of "person" changes a bit, but it's basically the same:
I think you can see now how that first kanji of "chuukai" was made, and why the parts would mean "person" and "middle." The right part meaning "middle" is considered the dominant part of this kanji, so the kanji is pronounced the same as "middle" (chuu). The following kanji are all pronounced "chuu" because of this dominant part of the kanji:
If you haven't guessed already, the meaning for this kanji (with "person" on left and "middle" on the right) is most easily put as "middle-man."
Now, to quickly look at the second kanji of "chuukai" - there are two vertical lines at the bottom and a sort of umbrella at the top. So you could say the meaning has to do with "two things under one umbrella." Or you could picture it as the two things at the bottom merging into one thing at the top. This kanji means "to jam in" "crammed in" or "mediate." It is a sense that I think is displayed pretty well by the image of the kanji itself. Whenever this kanji is seen, it is pronounced "kai" hence we have our word "chuukai." Again you can see below, all of the following kanji have this part in them, and all are pronounced kai:
So, if our Jack Nova had known how to read kanji, he would've had many hints as to what "chuukai" means. And if you haven't guessed, it means "INTERMEDIATION" or a sort of agency of middlemanning or go-between. To get this from kanji meaning "middleman" and "mediate," I think it's a rather easy step.
1) The kanji themselves as images demonstrate meaning. If his boss had written the kanji, he might have been able to piece together the meaning from the images. For an English speaker, this is like knowing Latin - so that when you hear a new word like "incorporation," you would know "corpor" comes from the Latin "corpus" (meaning body), "in" obviously means "enter" or "insert" or similar, and the "ation" at the end is an action - so this is an action of something entering a body.
2) If he had memorized kanji, upon hearing "chuukai" he could've tried piecing together different kanji he knew that were pronounced "chuu" and "kai." This is because the kanji also give hints as to the pronunciation.
3) As a person only knowing the spoken language, there is no reference as to why "chuukai" is called "chuukai." That is, why does a word pronounced "CHUUKAI" mean "INTERMEDIATION?" Seeing the kanji, there is a reason for the pronunciation to be that way and there is a reason for it to mean what it means. The meaning and pronunciation are linked.
So, obviously knowing the written language gives a lot of clues about the language in general. Not only is it handy to know, it is essential in terms of understanding Japan. When you think of a word, sure you think of the meaning and how to say it and so on, but in Japan you have these concrete images - a man in the middle, two pieces moving to form one - if you think about words like this, with pictures, it's a clue into another way of thinking.
Next, in Part 5, I'll look at a 4-kanji combination to show more depth as to what's being missed out on.
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