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How to Remember Chinese Characters

Published Wednesday, August 03, 2005 by Mathieu | E-mail this post

When drilling Characters (in the red book) try using these techniques:

If there is a compound word like 历史, write 历 then
史 straight after, rather than doing all of one and then
the other. This will help you learn the characters with
the words rather than on their own.
Don't use Biro. Anything but Biro.
Use the browser window to hide the english and/or
pinyin to study the words. Enlarge the text on the screen
so you can learn to write the characters properly.
Say the word outloud (mumble it - whatever, people
will think you're crazy though!) each time you
write the character.
Drill half a line (row), then use a ruler or a bit
of paper, anything to cover the already written characters,
and move the ruler across to cover each one you write.
You'll find that you might have been looking at the
previous character to write the next - covering it up
makes you go only by what's in your head!
If there's a character that forms a compound from
a different lesson and it's not repeated, note the combination
at the top of the drilling page, complete with pinyin.
Write the pintin for each character in the margin
of the page, for quick reference.
Drilling characters is someting you can do when you're
not fully alert - it's not rocket science! So leave
it till later on (at night?) when you're about to go
to bed or something.
Stroke order stroke order stroke order stroke order
stroke order stroke order stroke order stroke order
stroke order!!!
If you have the time, test yourself with a different
drill sheet the next day, and then the next week.
If you're crazy (and interested) type the pinyin into
full form characters and try writing that as well. (听
-> 聽!)
Don't do a whole 20 characters at once. Aim for about
10 per day. Do the rest the next day after revising
the previous ones.
Give yourself little tests. Cover the pinyin and write
the characters, and vice-versa, mark the ones you can't
do, and drill them another 10 - 20 times. You should
get it then.