One of the coolest things about an idea-sign language, which motley Japanese at times is, is that it encourages making new words by combining simpler ones. It does this as a necessity (there are only so many signs you can remember), by making of words stable roots (idea-signs tend to be more stable than letter bundles—for one thing they don’t reflect pronunciation changes), and by not allowing for sound loan words (“Bon weekend!”), where meaning is lost in grafting a word from one meaning net into another.

Here a couple of interesting, basic examples:

火山 = fire mountain = volcano
下女 = down woman = maid
電話 = electricity talk = telephone
出口　= out mouth = exit
入口 = in mouth = entrance