How to memorise kanji (Chinese characters) better?

Language Learning
1

I’m now learning Japanese in a serious way, by myself.

I consider myself pretty good at memorising vocabulary (English word to Japanese word). In fact, I can memorise hundreds of words within an hour. I find it simple to do this.

My method for vocabulary is to just transform the Japanese pronunciation into similarly sounding english words, and then form an image of the actual meaning. Eg, hitsuji = hit Sue G. (sue g is my friend who loves sheep) = a sheep hitting my friend, Sue G.

SIMPLE AMD EFFECTIVE FOR ME!! I can memorise a word in a few seconds using this method.

HOWEVER, kanji is a totally different ball game. I’m atrocious at memorising Chinese characters relative to the ease of vocabulary! My retention rate in anki is often 70% for kanji reviews. My vocabulary never drops below 95%!

I’m using the Heisig method, from his book ‘remembering the kanji’. This is a mnemonic method, basically complicated kanji is made up of smaller kanji, called primitives, we learn the primitives and then form images.

This method is ok, but im getting poor results! To be clear, the purpose is to go from seeing an English keyword, to writing the kanji for it. One of the problems is not being able to remember the story for the English keyword.

I don’t know why this happens, because I’m great at remembering the story for vocabulary!?

The pictograph method is actually not good for this too. Kanji is just too complicated to form pictures; this method is only effective for very simple ones, such as 火 (fire). It would be near impossible to differentiate things like:
量 (quantity) 墨 (black ink) 鯉 (carp).

Therefore, I’m certain that any method is going to have to use the approach of breaking the kanji up into “primitives” and then form some images related to them. I’m just wondering if there is a better way to do this. Eg, with a memory palace… Or anything!?

Has anybody worked out a better method for memorising Chinese characters, or can you suggest an alternative method for memorising these kinds of things?

Thanks!

2

I found the answer!

The kanji “movie method” is a much better way (essentially using loci inside a movie scene).
Just google it for more information.

3

If you want to speak better, you should communicate with local people more and listen to more. But if you want to memorize chinese characters, best and effective way is practice. Teachers of hanbridgemandarin often say practices make perfect. There is no shortcut in this process. So when you write and read more, then you can moemorize them, but firstly you should fall in with them or use methods you like to study. Wish you early success.

4

I’m making a guide on the forum… check it out… still not done though.
Edit: Looks like you don’t have to use my guide since you’re using RTK, for you to memorize Kanji easily, try looking at a mountain picture, and if i ask you what it is your answer will be “Mountain”, why not change your answer to "山” always look at things in Kanji.
I.E: Go out, and jog… look 上（above), and what do you 見(see?) ? 日 (the sun).
Use your environment, to remember Kanji.