It may be great to add explanations (real or funny) why characters are written this way (ethymology). You can use Fun with Chinese Characters or zhongwen.com. That may improve memorization for many people.

This could be a useful addition. But since many people use their own mnemonics, what might be better is a text box, where people can add in any text they want, be it something they have created to remember the character or its etymology.

But only if it wouldn't show up automatically!

I think in the chat, Nick or someone said they were going to be adding mnemonic bits to the page at some point.

More useful to me (and this is a hijack :p) would be to show words that use the character being studied. Would put it in context, and would make it easier to remember the pronunciation.

Yes, mnemonics box would be great.

The idea for the mnemonics box is that it will contain shared stories/info/whatever helpful to learning the characters, and you'll be able to pick which ones you see (or none). They'll come up with the rest of the character prompt or when you click on them, so they don't give it away. They'll be associated with the characters, and not the words.

I think the etymologies will go inside the lookup menu (the magnifying glass). And hopefully, most mnemonics will be closely related to the etymologies, or at least the list of which components are in the character.

The "containing words" feature is also going to go in the character lookup menu. And you'll be able to add any of the words you see there with one click. It's not done yet, but we have built a good part of it.

"The "containing words" feature is also going to go in the character lookup menu. And you'll be able to add any of the words you see there with one click."

Awesome! I go out looking for 'containing words' to add to my queue on my own sometimes. It really helps me remember those difficult characters. This new feature will let me get it done and back to practicing much faster. Looking forward to it.

Keep those sweet extras coming.