At least one of the Chinese languages is tonal too, so the same sequence of vowel and consonant sounds can have totally different meanings when spoken at different pitches. (The humorous example is “grass mud horse,” which is a bit NSFW and a great act of someone thumbing their nose at censorship.)

I wonder if native speakers have a greater emphasis on subvocalized pitch, or if that’s even a part of subvocalizing? Paying attention to my own internal reading now, I suspect that it is.