Is it true that Japanese Kanji resembles pictures?

Question

Is it true that Japanese Kanji resembles pictures?

Answer 1

I would suppose so.  It also kind of depends on your imagination, although I would say it isn't particularly difficult to find the "pictures".

Here's a bit of history of Kanji:

Kanji is derived from the original Chinese characters.  Chinese characters were originally drawn pictures.

Like the character of "sun" :

「日」 used to be a circle with a dot in the middle.  That was the first basis of the Chinese written language.  After a while, when language and communication became more and more important, the pictures needed to be simplified [you must be able to imagine that some words are currently many strokes, think of how long it would take to draw out if it were still a picture].  Gradually, the dot became a line, and the circle grew edges to finally become the symbol we know today.

Since Kanji came from Chinese characters, I would assume that people could find that Kanji resembles pictures.  

Such as "Tree":

「木」: you could picture the middle line as the trunk while the two lines on either side would be the branches

"River":

「川」: you could picture the flowing of water with the 3 lines

"Fire":

「火」: you could picture the flames leaping out with the 2 dots on either side as the sparks/leaping flames, and the 2 longer lines as the actual fire

So to answer your question, I would suppose that some kanji resembles pictures, but some have evolved so much that it probably doesn't resemble a picture.  Most, however, do, I believe.

I hope this helped a bit.

Answer 2

SOME kanji were originally pictographs of recognizable objects, such as 人 (hito) meaning 'person,' and 木 (ki) meaning 'tree.' But other kanji represent abstract ideas and you would never be able to guess their meaning just by looking at them. Anyways, ALL kanji have developed so far from their original form that there are very few you can understand just by looking at them.

However, once you understand the radicals (the parts of kanji that show up over and over and which have meaning) you can sometimes guess the meaning of a new kanji just by recognizing the meaning of the parts. For example, the first time I saw this kanji -- 汽　-- I could guess the meaning before anyone explained it because I knew the left-hand side was the radical for 'water' and the right-hand side meant 'air.' Thus, I guessed the meaning was 'steam.' I was right on that one, but it's pretty rare.

Basically, you have to learn ALL the kanji one by one. It's the only real way to master the language. There aren't really any shortcuts.

Answer 3

Kanji is Chinese original character.

Some of the Kanji characters are hieroglyphics rather improved than pictgram.

For instance.

山　mountain

川　river

馬　horse

日　sun

月　moon

There are some ideogram in the Kanji too as well as below.

One is 　一　such as one bar.

Two is 　二　such as two bars.

Three is 三　such as three bars.

Answer 4

Kind of.. Depends how you think of it..? :P

For instance.. This one, meaning Cherry Blossom, or Cherry Tree, kinda looks like a tree on the left, with stuff falling from it on the right:

桜   (Sakura)

This one meaning "tears" (from crying) or "tear" looks like a person with droplets flying out of them on the left:

涙　(Namida)

But there are some times of Kanji that don't mean whole words.. they're just used to make up other, bigger, words.

Like 君 (Kimi)

Well.. Kimi might mean something on it's own.. but probably not written like that.

... Yeah.. it's really complicated grammar stuff... :S

Haha! :)

Answer 5

Japanese Kanji is another word for chinese characters.

So Yes chinese characters are written to kinda resemble the actual meaning.  

Answer 6

Yes.  Kanji are basically stylized pictures of things.  When you look at basic kanji you should be able to see.  More complex kanji are mainly just combinations of more basic kanji.

So, for example,

木　is a tree.  It sort of looks like one with the trunk and branches.

林　means "woods", made with two trees.

森　means "forest", made with three trees.