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The first Chinese characters were drawings of physical objects.
第一批漢字是各種物體的線條圖畫。
Some characters have been simplified and others have been made more difficult over time.
隨著時間的推移，有些漢字簡化了，有些變得越發復雜了。
However, as a whole, the characters have developed from drawings into standard forms.
不過，從總體上說，漢字是從圖畫形式發展為標準字形的。
The character for a mountain was at first three mountaintops together.
“山”的象形字原來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.
接著又變為一座山峰和三根線條，最終才演化成了我們令天使用的“山”字。
Not all characters were developed from drawings of objects.
然而并不是所有漢字都是源于物體線條圖畫的。
Sometimes to express ideas, some characters were made by combining two or more characters together.
有時候表達思想，一些字通過組合兩個或者兩個以上的漢字來創造。
For example, ‘rest’ was made of the characters for a man and a tree.
如，“休”這個漢字就是“人”和“木”這兩個漢字組成的。
The character ‘prisoner’ was formed with a 'man' inside a square.
“囚”這個漢字就是將“人”的這個符號放在一個方格中所形成的。
Other characters were developed for directions and numbers.
還有一些漢字創造出來是為了表示方向和數字的。
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.
這些漢字你只要看一眼它們，就很容易辨別出它們所要表達的意思，如互為反義詞的兩個漢字“上”和“下”就屬于這種情況。
