kanji

kanji is the hardest, but possibly most rewarding of japans three 'writing systems' - katakana and hiragana being the more modern and simplified 'syllable-alphabets'. kanji characters are the representation of ideas or words - originally drawings originating from China - and many still are beautiful visuals of nature or ideas.

take the example of the kanji shown for tree, wood and forest (ki, hayashi and mori respectively). these may be the most obvious examples of kanji for a foreigner to understand. simply repeating the form represents a larger amount of trees - thus; a wood or a forest. these are also common surnames, just as in the UK. stroke order is something a little unnatural though for a writer of english - stroke order is shown in red in the diagrams.

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