An interesting question is how one uses a dictionary for a language that uses ideograms. In Japanese, for example, where ideograms are called kanji?, each ideogram is made up of one or more "radicals". A radical is a very basic ideogram, representing a simple concept, like "man," "sun," or "tree" for example. When looking up a kanji, one must be able to isolate the important radical from the ideogram using a system. Then one counts how many additional strokes there are in the ideogram, in addition, to the radical. A Japanese kanji dictionary is arranged by radical first, then additional line or brush strokes. Therefore, one finds a definition, by looking up the kanji by radical plus additional strokes. For example, a particular kanji may be composed of the radicial for "man," and 7 additional strokes. To look this up one finds the radical for "man" in the dictionary and then passes through 1 additional stroke, 2 additional strokes, etc. until one finds entries for 7 additional strokes.The entry will be found here with a definition. To assist the user, there is often an index for the radicals at the end of a kanji dictionary.