Chinese writing is a logographic system, meaning that each character represents a word or a meaningful part of a word. This system has thousands of characters, with the most commonly used ones numbering in the thousands. Chinese characters are often composed of smaller components called radicals, which can provide hints about the meaning or pronunciation of the character. The writing system is used in several languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hokkien. Chinese writing is traditionally written from top to bottom and right to left, although modern texts are often written left to right. The characters are an essential part of Chinese culture and history, reflecting the language's evolution over thousands of years.