Japanese learn to read and write about 2,000 kanji in school. A person with an average education is familiar with roughly 3,000 characters. Kanji and kana are used together to write most text in Japanese.

The earliest kanji were primitive pictographs: simple pictures of the objects they represent. Click on the modern kanji at the right to see examples of original pictographs.
Another kind of kanji are ideographs, or symbols that represent an idea or concept. Click on the kanji at the right for examples.
Some kanji combine two characters to represent a new meaning. Click on the kanji at the right to see how this works.