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The first Chinese characters were drawings of physical objects.
第一批汉字是各种物体的线条图画。
Some characters have been simplified and others have been made more difficult over time.
随着时间的推移，有些汉字简化了，有些变得越发复杂了。
However, as a whole, the characters have developed from drawings into standard forms.
不过，从总体上说，汉字是从图画形式发展为标准字形的。
The character for a mountain was at first three mountaintops together.
“山”的象形字原来是三座山峰堆在一起的。
This became one mountaintop and three lines, and over time turned into the character used nowadays.
接着又变为一座山峰和三根线条，最终才演化成了我们令天使用的“山”字。
Not all characters were developed from drawings of objects.
然而并不是所有汉字都是源于物体线条图画的。
Sometimes to express ideas, some characters were made by combining two or more characters together.
有时候表达思想，一些字通过组合两个或者两个以上的汉字来创造。
For example, ‘rest’ was made of the characters for a man and a tree.
如，“休”这个汉字就是“人”和“木”这两个汉字组成的。
The character ‘prisoner’ was formed with a 'man' inside a square.
“囚”这个汉字就是将“人”的这个符号放在一个方格中所形成的。
Other characters were developed for directions and numbers.
还有一些汉字创造出来是为了表示方向和数字的。
It is easy to distinguish their meanings by looking at them, for examples, the characters for ‘up’ and ‘down’, which are opposites of each other.
这些汉字你只要看一眼它们，就很容易辨别出它们所要表达的意思，如互为反义词的两个汉字“上”和“下”就属于这种情况。
