Chinese Characters and Radicals - How do I learn and remember Chinese characters?

One way of remembering characters is to make up "stories" which would make "sense" to yourself. For instance, in 休 xiū to rest, the radical on the left, 亻means "a person", and the part on the right, 木, means wood or tree, so the made up "story" could be "a person is leaning against a tree to have a rest." Let's look at another example; 队 duì a queue. The radical on the left, 阝means plenty and the part on the right, 人 means people, so one could say: "Plenty of people make a queue." Sometimes the radical doesn't have enough to allow a story to be made up then one should use one's imagination. For instance, in 办 bàn to deal with the middle part of the character 力 means strength, and the two dots, 、 look like sweat, so one could say: "Nowadays one needs strength and sweat to deal with business."

Using the following radical table while you are learning the Chinese characters in the Characters section on the CD will help you to become familiar with counting strokes and remembering the characters.