How do Japanese characters work?

Question:

I know the question sounds pretty stupid, haha,
But I know Korean works like:
ㅂ= p/b
ㅁ= m
ㅅ= s
etc
so is Japanese kind of the same?

Answer:

Whether you are dealing with kanji, hiragana or katakana there is a phonetic sound associated with each character. With kanji there may be 3 or 4 phonetic possibilities. With the exception of ん, all the pronunciations end in vowel sounds. This makes turning a foreign word into something that can be almost unrecognizable. And when pronounced with the correct native pronunciation, the word is quite often unrecognizable to the Japanese. For instance, McDonalds. At least for kids learning English, they are totally clueless when you use the American pronunciation.