The Chinese script being pictographic, one might be able to work out the meaning of a character without knowing/remembering the pronunciation.
Admittedly, one does need to know certain basic rules for a start to help with the guessing. (I will cover some of the basic rules in a separate blog.)
An example is the character 旦, which comprises 日 / sun (which one does need to know = / represents "sun") and a horizontal line at the bottom. (I'm deliberately not providing the readings here for the purpose of this illustration.)
旦 means morning / dawn, or day (vs night).
You can visualise it here: the sun over the horizon, therefore = morning or dawn or day.
(The reading is dàn, for those who might be interested.)
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