Yamato kotoba
Usually, words with only one kanji are yamato kotoba, such as katana (kanji: 刀, hiragana: かたな, meaning: sword), sakana (kanji: 魚, hiragana: さかな, meaning: fish), kami (kanji: 紙, hiragana: かみ, meaning: paper), yama (kanji: 山, hiragana: やま, meaning: mountain) te (kanji: 手, hiragana: て, meaning: hand), and oyogu (kanji and hiragana: 泳ぐ, hiragana only: およぐ, meaning: to swim). Most kanji (the Japanese version of Chinese characters) have two different kinds of pronunciation, on'yomi (the pronunciation of the kanji borrowed from Chinese) and kun'yomi (the native pronunciation of Japanese words that use the kanji). Yamato kotoba words use the kanji's kun'yomi.