Written by Rahul Kumar Singh · Published 30 June 2026
The realisation that saved my relationship with kanji was simple: the earliest characters are drawings. Not metaphorically — literally. Ancient people drew a mountain, and three thousand years of simplification later, you're looking at 山.
Here are 25 beginner-level kanji where the picture is still visible. Read this list once and you'll never see these characters as random strokes again.
Nature
- 山mountain — three peaks rising from the ground.
- 川river — three streams of flowing water.
- 木tree — trunk, branches, roots.
- 林grove — two trees together.
- 森forest — three trees. More trees, bigger word.
- 田rice field — a field divided into four paddies, seen from above.
- 日sun / day — the sun (once a circle with a dot in the middle).
- 月moon / month — a crescent moon.
- 火fire — a flame with sparks flying off both sides.
- 水water — a central stream with splashes.
- 雨rain — drops falling inside a cloud under the sky.
- 石stone — a rock sitting at the base of a cliff.
People and Body
- 人person — a figure standing on two legs.
- 口mouth — an open mouth.
- 目eye — an eye turned on its side (the lines are the iris).
- 耳ear — the outline of an ear.
- 手hand — a palm with fingers spread.
- 子child — a baby with open arms, wrapped below.
- 女woman — originally a kneeling figure.
- 大big — a person stretching arms and legs wide: "this big!"
Combinations — Where It Gets Fun
Once the basic pictures are in your head, compound kanji become tiny stories:
- 休rest — a person (亻) leaning against a tree (木).
- 明bright — sun (日) + moon (月): the two brightest things.
- 好like / fond — a woman (女) with a child (子): affection.
- 男man — strength (力) applied to the rice field (田): the field worker.
- 岩boulder — a stone (石) on a mountain (山).
A note on honesty: not every kanji is a picture, and some popular "origin stories" are modern inventions rather than real etymology. That's fine. Whether the story is three thousand years old or invented by a textbook last year, if it makes the character stick, it's doing its job. Memory doesn't check sources.
What to Do With This
All 25 characters above are on the JLPT N5 kanji chart with readings, meanings and example words. My suggested loop: pick five, find the picture in each, then write them with correct stroke order in the writing sandbox — the eight stroke-order rules apply to every one of them. Five characters a day this way, and the first hundred kanji arrive faster than you'd believe.
Rahul Kumar Singh
I build and write NihongoDoya. I'm a Japanese learner from Nepal — currently preparing for the JLPT N4 at a language school with native Japanese teachers — and I publish the study system I use myself, free for everyone. More about me · Say hello