* The Japanese use four different writing systems: kanji, hiragana, katakana, and romanji.
Kanji are Chinese characters which were brought into the Japanese language thousands of years ago. Each kanji character stands for a different word.
Did you think learning to write 26 different letters was hard work? Japanese students have to learn 1006 kanji by the time they finish 6th grade! The kanji pictured above reads, from top to bottom, "difficult writing."
