We say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but now when we put things online and send each other texts we try to make pictures represent just one word. The pictures are icons (online we are calling them emoji). They can be symbols for your feelings, like a smiley face. Or they can show what something is, like the symbols for bathrooms. The bathroom symbols usually mean two things though: 1- this is a toilet, 2- this toilet is for men, or this toilet is for women, or this toilet is for anybody. It can get pretty complicated. If takes a lot of thinking to make a picture, an icon, that everybody can understand no matter what language they speak.

1,2,3,4
1 Pick an object.
2 Put the object, or its photograph, in front of you .
3 Draw an icon for the object.
4 Complete the sentences describing the object.

Because
Icons have almost no details, but the details they have tell us exactly what they are. Words try to do the same thing, but with…. words. That’s why we need to constantly improve our vocabulary, even in our first language.