@Omun Thanks!
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As a great man once said:
“It just works”
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It depends on what you mean. If you’re talking about words, you just use them as you naturally would and it should be obvious from the context which one you mean (usually). If you hear something like “The じんこう of this town is 100,000 people” you won’t register this as “artificial”, because it makes no sense. Context helps with these a lot.
Now, if you want to talk about individual kanji in Japanese, you have a few options. The most obvious one is when the kanji can be used for a word by itself. You know the word 字, right? It means “character (i.e. kanji)”. For example, you want to talk about the kanji 口. You can say “「くち」の字” (“the character for mouth”) and everyone will understand that you’re referring to te kanji for 口. For a kanji like 工 it’s harder, because it doesn’t have any jouyou kun’yomi, but it’s used in a lot of common words, so you can refer to it that way. Something like “工事の「こう」の字” (“the character for the こう in 工事” basically) .
Tips and tricks that I use for vocab
The trick I figured out to prevent myself from being distracted by kanji is: when I learn, I focus on the reading, and less on the kanji. I associate a meaning with a reading, and then when the quiz comes in reviews I use the kanji as a hint to try to get to a reading that I remember. Sometimes there are exceptions, but they are usually memorable enough that I don’t have trouble with it. That way, when I see something like 会話 I don’t go like “ok, so we have meet + talk, what could it mean?”, it’s more like “ok, so let’s see if we can read this… hmmm, do I know any words that have the reading かいわ? yeah I do, it’s “conversation”! sweet!”. It works for me, and it feels better than focusing on meaning and reading mnemonics or rote memorization.
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I do the same thing. Although have to be careful with reviews that I don’t input one’s reading withthis other kanji.
To not forget to look at the kanji.
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I’ve just started doing this. I didn’t do it deliberately. I think my brainmeats were just trying to give me a helping hand with my leeches. I’ve drastically reduced my leech numbers since I began using this method. Circling back to the OP, it doesn’t always help with the homonyms, obviously
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For homonyms, I find that the context sentences help a lot. If I understand how to use the word in context obviously it’ll help remember it better. It just takes a bit longer for the lesson, though.
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I will give this a go when I do my lessons tomorrow
I’ve recently discovered Dogen and his course about the Japanese pitch accents. To use it, you need to support him on Patreon, but I think it’s worth it.
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Please place your chopsticks on the edge of this bridge.
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How do you tell the following apart in a conversation in English?
Meat/meet
Two/to/too
Read/red
Reed/read
No/Know
Hi/high
Do/Due
It’s all in context. Certain words make no sense of use in a particular context. The same is true for Japanese.
If I say “Let’s meet up tomorrow” to you in English, you’ll clearly know I’m referring to meet not meat as the latter would make no sense.
If you’re at a Japanese restaurant and someone offered you はし would you think they are offering a bridge?
This isn’t to say that ambiguity can never exist, it certainly does and will happen, but I think people overplay this when it comes to Japanese. If that does happen, just ask for clarification just like you would in English or any other language when someone is being vague or ambiguous.
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Please don’t.
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This made me laugh for ages 
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I’m just imagining hearing this in london… 
This jam is proper population bruv.
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But how do you know if they mean
preserve
traffic or…
a banging tuuuune
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Yeah… I’m taking a break now.
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a break break or brake break
That’s exactly the other idea I was needing answers on! I was unsure the best way to wording it, but I’m glad you were able to give me some examples of how you would mention something like 口 as “こう”. Thank you!
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Just a break… but it’s over now.
Well remember that a lot of these onyomi homonym readings are necessarily going to be said in isolation. They will often, if not always, be used in a compound word and while there are still jukugo homonyms they will often, though not always, be clear from context which meaning can be ruled out. It’s best to focus on actual words not a kanji in isolation.