Why Kanji has many pronunciations?

How did it come to be that when Kanji became part of the Japanese language, there are different ways to pronounce the Kanji depending on which other Kanjis are used with it? (vs. Why didn't they just make one pronunciation per Kanji?) It makes learning Kanji so incredibly hard. It's difficult enough to have to remember all the strokes and the order of the strokes, especially if they have many strokes, all this in addition to hiragana and katakana! Whew!

When kanji were imported from China to Japan, the Chinese pronunciation of the kanji was also imported. At the same time, the native Japanese word (with its native pronunciation) was also kept in use and associated with the corresponding kanji. Therefore, a single kanji ended up having multiple pronunciations.

It is problem even for us Japanese.

Generally speaking, most of the two character phrase is are pronouced in old chinese style, or in japanese style.
For example, 　田中(field & center) can be read as Ta-Naka or Den-Chuu. The former is Japanese reading, the latter is Chinese reading.

Sometimes we can not how to read the family name of person.
So we ask, "What can I read your name?" .

In most case, the official words are read in Chinese Style, like 警察 Kei-Satsu police , 病院 Byou-In hospital.

It is very rare, but there are some special cases.
湯桶　Yu-Tou Hot water wooden bucket, Yu is Japanese style and Tou is Chinese style.
So Japanese-Chinese mixed reading Kanji is called Yu-Tou Yomi reading.
Chinese-Japanese mixed reading kanji is called Juu-Bako Yomi, as original kanji 重箱 is read in such order.

BTW do not worry so much, most people don' t know what is the correct reading of kanji.

YES! Why Japanese people! Why!! Hahaha!

I have the same question as you. I have been studying Japanese for a year and a half and remembereing Kanji is.... HARD! So many strokes, pronounciations, etc. to remember. On-yomi and Kun-yomi.

But not all Japanese people can read and write Kanji perfectly, especially difficult ones.

As I'm only learning Japanese to talk and speak with people during my travels, I completely gave up on learning kanji and concentrate on grammar and vocabulary instead, I can recommend it to anybody who's not really interested in reading and writing Japanese, but merely interested in communicating. :-)

Learning to read and write Japanese is probably harder than Chinese because most Japanese characters (kanji) have two or more pronunciations, whereas the vast majority of Chinese characters (hanzi) only have one. In Japanese you also have to contend with two syllabic scripts (hiragana and katakana). On the other hand, some Japanese words and word endings are easier to read than Chinese ones as they're written phonetically with hiragana or katakana, whereas all Chinese words are written with hanzi. If you don't know the pronunciation of the hanzi, you can only guess it based on similar hanzi you do know.
Learn Chinese characters: http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/chines...
Learn Japanese: http://www.busuu.com