A lot of Japanese restaurants, mangas and just paragraphs of texts in general
(or not in general, used basically anywhere) use combined characters to make
things appear shorter.

And I can’t understand them. I’m just now starting to practice Japanese. I
can’t even memorize all of katakana let alone Dakudon so that might be why but
can someone help me find an easier way to understand the combined symbols?

Combined symbols like: “私” from “わたし” (I/I am) and “鷹” from “たか” (Hawk/A hawk)
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kanji readings katakana hiragana reading-comprehension
How to understand combined characters (kanji) more easily?
The combined characters you are referring to are called "Kanji." It's a system
of writing, like hiragana and katakana, but they use Chinese characters. Most
kanji are made of different parts.

For example, the character "私{わたし}" is made of the grain radical (禾) on the
left and "厶" on the right. It's helpful to remember these characters like so,
along with their meanings and pronunciation.

Another example, the character "鷹{たか}" is made of the parts "广", "亻", "隹", and
"鳥". Its radical is the bird radical (鳥).

[Jisho.org](https://jisho.org/) is a great resource for this.
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I am just beginning too, but already I have some tips. First you can’t think
of any kanji as derived from Kana. Japanese doesn’t start with a phonetic
spelling of the word and then somehow cobbling together into a pictograph. In
fact the Kana were originally kanji they’ve been (overly) simplified.

If you’re looking up single kanji in google translate you might get the
pronunciation which you could translate into kana, but the two are not
equivalent. When something like “bus“ translates into multiple kanji, I will
use Google translate to work out the kana for pronunciation and check the
meaning of each kanji. So “bus” is “ride go”. Maybe not the most sophisticated
translation process but it does help me understand them better.

The best site I have found for understanding kanji components is
<https://jisho.org/search/%23kanji%20%E6%84%9B>. In this example you’re
looking at the Kanji for love. Not only does it give you the definition and
lots of other information about this symbol but on the left-hand side it
breaks it down into component parts. Some of those component parts have deeper
meaning. Sometimes not. That can help you understand the character a bit
better.

Finally, You have to also remember that these are Chinese characters adopted
by the Japanese. Sometimes I can look at the Chinese word and understand the
origin a bit better. If you understand Chinese you can also know that they
build aggregates not just based on meaning but also on phonetics. So an
aggregate kanji might have Chinese symbols indicating heart 心 and at the same
time symbols that mean nothing at all 冖 to you but meant something to some
Chinese living 2000 years ago.

I believe the word you are looking for is “inscrutable”. In any case this is
the best help I have at the moment. Good luck.
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Look up "Remembering The Kanji". It's a book that helps with exactly this.
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