I have been considering a range of methods for Chinese. I am a beginner in Chinese, but not a beginner in memory methods, so please listen to people better qualified on the language than me.
I eventually came to the conclusion that radicals were the way to go. I love memory palaces and set them up on pathways around where I live so I revise them on my daily walks. I have over 10 km in palaces now for a whole swag of different topics! The biggest is the Chinese radicals, at 5 km, but there is no need for it to be so physically big.
I am doing the 187 radicals in my dictionary because I am sure I won’t use those which aren’t in the dictionary, and can always add them in if I do. I use one house or shop per radical - hence the distance. But that means that at walking pace, I encounter them at a reasonable speed, slow enough to recall without pausing. Most people need less size because they can visualise the locations better than I can.
I also wanted to allow lots of room to add in the vocabulary associated with the radical. So the house or shop for a given radical will end up surrounded by vocabulary as I add it. I find parts of the house or garden which reminds me of the radical shape and then add in the meaning, giving me the start of stories.
The memory palace is in order because that gives me an idea of the number of strokes. But I am not memorising them in order of the palace, but adding in the radicals as I come across them. So a few houses (I am still beginning!) have the radical and some words added, others are just locations and I don’t even yet know the radical, just the approximate number of strokes.
My memory palaces for French and other topics work really well, but I am new to Chinese. I’d love to hear how you go and adapt when better ideas are posted.
Thank you for the topic!
Lynne