Happy everyday, Brian! I guess chinese like me feel familiar with English alphabet because we learn Pinyin in mainland China. I guess the japanese feel the same way about the English alphabet, Roman letters. Japanese also feel familiar with Chinese characters. Since Americans invented the computer and keyboard with 26 letters, the whole world has been built on the roman letters and arabic numbers. Maybe everybody won't know how to write their own characters in the future, they type with keyboards. Enjoy your learning :)