[tsimionescu]

Do Chinese characters always have the same pronunciation? In Japanese at least, their Kanji (which are derived from Chinese characters) are often read in entirely different ways in different contexts. For example, 二人 is read as "futari" (two people), but ニ alone is read "ni" and 人 alone is read as "hito".

[FooBarWidget]

Mostly yes. In Mandarin, tone can be a bit different depending on context but overall pronunciation doesn't differ that much.

But a major caveat is that pronunciation can be wildly different when spoken with other dialects. Mandarin and Cantonese reading of the same text, even with same meaning, sound entirely different.

[em-bee]

that's a good question, i know that there are many characters that share one pronunciation, but i have not come across the reverse. there are different pronunciations in different dialects/languages of course, and maybe some of those get adopted by other dialects (that would make sense for food names for example) but i didn't study chinese, so i really don't know.