The Japanese do this all the time. In fact, they'll often even put two characters together that, for all practical intents and purposes, mean pretty much the same thing. 鍛錬, for example, means tempering, disciplining, or forging. The characters are 鍛 [たん], meaning “to forge/to train” and 錬 [れん], meaning “to temper/to train.” I guess it's done for emphasis or coloring the meaning. Both characters have the radical for gold (金), indicating a metallurgical forging process.

They're also fond of repeating the same character, as in words like 時時 (usually written 時々, with 々 being a sort of short hand for “repeat the previous character”). In this case, the word is time-time, which means “sometimes” or “occasionally.”