Ok don't crucify me just yet, Mnemonics work for some people, in my experience for most people. They work for me, and thats not debatable. What if, instead of flash card pictures you added some simple but interesting sentences with each character to memorize it? Using the Mnemonic system with wrote memorization would be gold.

I refer you to this book:

http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RH/RH%20Simplified-sample.pdf

This is the first 60 pages, I would skip down to the fist visual which is a small flash card with their method on it.

The mnemonics would help us remember the character (visually and its meaning + the tone) and using Skritter with a wacom/tablet will help us remember by drilling it into our heads and teaching us how to write all at the same time.

Last November we all went to a language learning conference in Florida, and I went to a presentation there on mnemonics. I didn't get all the details since they were talking in Japanese, but luckily the powerpoint slides were in English. Basically, they compared user generated mnemonics with teacher provided mnemonics and rote learning. Rote learning was clearly the worst for the students, self generated was the best, and there were mixed reactions towards the teacher provided ones.

So basically we were thinking we would provide a way for users to create and save their own mnemonics with each of their characters and words, that can be made and viewed while they're practicing. We could probably also allow users to share their mnemonics, so that we'd have both mnemonics you create and others created for you. How does that sound?

That sounds fantastic, I could write up some from the book to help people out but that would be a huge undertaking. I have found other's mnemonics to be helpful though so yes I think that would be best, especially considering the amount of work it would create for you guys.

I have no doubt that it helps you Kaer but I wonder how do you use "mnemonics" when you have to read a book/comic or worse subtitle/karaoke ?

Actually I never tried mnemonic but i'm interested in, usually I simply write the chars a dozen times on a paper and after it's ok (also, living in a chinese writing system country helps a LOT to memorize)

I like serickso's point about the student-generated mnemonics. My students always come up with their own for remembering the characters, and they like it much more than the ones I come up with.

It's funny you should post the link to that particular book, Kaer. Another friend of mine sent me the same link today. It must be getting popular.

It was listed on a blog I read, and another, I noticed that a few other blogs about learning Chinese also use mnemonics I just never knew the name of the system.

@Tortue

Definitely give it a try, read that book (gives you the first 60 pages) and see if it works out for you. I don't think it will be a waste of time if it indeed does work for you it will save you much more time than it took to read the 60 pages.

Just one example: I could never remember the character 催 cuī: "urge, hurry, hasten" -- until I made a story for it: "Hurry, person, that mountain is going to fall on that bird!" Now I remember it really easily.

Eventually, I'll become familiar enough with the character that I won't use the story any more.

These kind of stories/mnemonics are written about in lots of books, perhaps most notably Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, a classic from way back. Remembering the Hanzi just came out, and a lot of blogs are aflutter about it.

Exactly nick, thats what inspired me to ask this very question. Right now I'm trying to figure out which book I will buy, this one is based of Heisig's work and has some 1,500 characters in it (the one I linked to) and also on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236

And then there is this one, it has just 800 characters but I believe it also teaches the pinyin? I do know it teaches the tones, so it must teach the pinyin (hope someone can chime in). Amazon link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Tuttle-Learning-Chinese-Characters-Revolutionary/dp/080483816X

I might just have to buy both.

As a mnemonics I'd rather use the chars decomposition (useful for type chinese faster) into parts or parts use in previously studied chars

For instance :

催 : I would remember it as 人 (stroke), 山, 隹
鷄：愛，糸，大，鳥

Etc Etc...

Tortue, if you go through the first 60 pages of that book you will see that he has a pretty genius system which builds you up to remember simple chars to more complicated chars.

I just bought Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Part 1 from Amazon (they shipped to China for 10 usd). And I guess the book is authored by James W. Heisig and a guy nanmed Timothy W. Richardson.

i agree that everybody has his own system for remembering stuff. for some characters i remember it visually even if it is not a pictographic character, for other the parts, still other maybe i have some experience i attach to it, ... i doubt that somebody else writing a book can make me remember better. I do agree that more attention should go to analysing the characters and its parts and the reason why it is used the way it is. In mu school anyway there is almost no attention for this and it sucks.

sharing our ways to remember a character would be awesome but maybe not really worth the trouble of implementing it? just my humble opinion

@Kaer, I've read but I believe its success will depends how our brain works to memorize !

I'm pretty sure that If my mom wants to learn chinese, I'll certainly try the mnemonics with her. But to me (and only to me) I think remember a mnemonics beside (beside tone, writing, words...) is a bit too much especially if you aim to learn 3/4/5000 chars or more.

I try to keep 漢字 as abstract and as easy as possible (If A = a then a = A) because I believe that is the way my brain works.

Also, to help memorizing chars, I suggest you to read (in chinese) some easy and famous Manga that u've certainly read 100x time before. I'm currently reading Dragon Ball Z which is quite simple to read !

I use http://zhongwen.com and its associated book for all of my decomposition / mnemonics needs - I don't make up my own. A good (but purposely not ideal example) is 察cha2 from the word 警察jian3cha2.

@Kaer

I've picked up both books in the past - I think Heisig's book is better, both for the number of words it provides and some less obtuse mnemonics. The Tuttle book tries to tie in pronunciation and tone into the memorization, and it gets really muddy really quickly.

I was so proud of myself my first few days in class when I realized 想 was "eye heart wood." I love having the humor of a 9 year old.