<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The modern Japanese writing system is a combination of two character types: logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana . Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese words and grammatical elements, and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis . Almost all written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji and kana . Because of this mixture of scripts, in addition to a large inventory of kanji characters, the Japanese writing system is often considered to be the most complicated in use anywhere in the world . </P> <P> Several thousand kanji characters are in regular use . Each has an intrinsic meaning (or range of meanings), and most have more than one pronunciation, the choice of which depends on context . Japanese primary and secondary school students are required to learn 2,136 jōyō kanji as of 2010 . The total number of kanji is well over 50,000, though few if any native speakers know anywhere near this number . </P>

Where did japan get its first writing system from