Do Chinese People Think in Chinese Characters?

When Chinese people think in Chinese, do they think in characters? Or do they think in pinyin? Or maybe both? For English speakers — when you think in English, do you think in words? Is that how it works?

In fact, when we think or mentally express something in Chinese, what usually comes to mind isn't pinyin or characters, but spoken sounds — the voice in our heads. When reading or silently reading text, some people naturally "hear" the words in their minds, as if they're being read aloud according to what they want to say.

Many learners of Chinese rely heavily on pinyin. They can only read the characters when pinyin is present. Without it, they recognize very few characters. But actually, pinyin is not as important as Chinese characters when it comes to learning Chinese. The Chinese phonetic system has existed for thousands of years — pinyin is just a modern tool to record it.

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