When I learn a character, first, I look at its radical. This allows you to distinguish between two characters such as 稻 (dào paddy; rice) and 蹈 (dǎo tread; follow). In this case, the left part is the radical, it tells us what the word is talking about. The 1st one is about grain 禾, whereas the other one is about foot 足. Then, the right part 舀 yao3 (bale out) gives a phonetic clue to pronounce the character (in other cases, that part is just meaningful). Once you identified the radical, you have to get familiar with the other part. Very often, you'll notice that it is also used in other characters. For example, 舀 is also used in 滔滔 (tāotāo, torrential), 搯 (tāo, variant of 掏 tāo 'pull out'), and a few other characters always pronounced dao or tao (in different tones). In "torrential", the radical is water 氵, whereas in "pull out" the radical is a hand 扌. This makes sense, doesnt' it? Once I memorized the radicals, how do I memorize the right part of a character? I look carefully at it and try to make a connection between its shape, the way I draw its different elements, and its meaning or the meaning of the whole character. As for 舀, it's quite easy to see that it represents a 爪 hand emptying a 臼 mortar. The 1st time I realized it could be so easy to remember the meaning of some Chinese characters and how they were written was when I first met the character 狱 (yù, lawsuit, jail; representing two dogs with words between them, as a separation). However, there are many characters I still find difficult to memorize, sometimes I can only remember their pronounciation but I forgot their meaning, or I can remember only the meaning of others but I forgot how to read them! But when this happens, it's only because I didn't use the above mentioned method; I just looked at them and searched their meaning hastily, as a result, after a few days, I can't really remember them. Anyhow, learning Chinese characters is always stimulating! 加油!

Like Chinese kids do 1.Learn from some basic parts called 边旁（biān páng ）,for example，钅，辶，etc,and 部首（bu shou）like 立，口,etc,all these are basic,what you surpposed to do is to separate it into 边旁and部首 when you learn a new Hanzi and write them down for thousands of times,the point is,learn little by little and repeat.

Write more. When I was young, my Chinese teacher always asked we students to write each character for at least 20 times. Sometimes more. So I really had a tough time. But it did help. I think remembering Chinese characters is just like reciting English words. There are always some mistakes. But what matters is that we learn them by heart and it will pays off. Good luck!

begin like a baby,learn from the most basic. Try to learn little by little. Roma is not build in one day. If you persist on learning,it will be more easier afterwards. begin from the seperate part,and simple words.

Muriel your method is good! yes firstly remember the radicals（偏旁部首）. they are the basics, and they tend to tell you something about the meaning of the character. believe or try to believe that the characters are not made this way randomly. there have to be some sort of connection between the shape and the meaning, which can then be used as a tool for memorising. although this connection has become more and more tenuous during the whole history of the simplification of Chinese characters. these characters have been continuously simplified since they were invented. so are the "traditional" Chinese.