Using English words to learn pronunciations of the Chinese characters

You can use English words to learn the pronunciations of some Chinese characters, although don’t seem to work so well with all the hanzi due to the different type of sound of the two languages.
冉ran , passage of time, the time RUNS out.
尧(堯) yao, name, of the legendary emperor that created weiqi(go), to educate his son, and every wrong move he beat him in the head, yao (ouch) (you will learn about Chinese culture too using this story).
母mu, mother, female, it is a pictograph of breasts, where there is milk like in the cow that make a sound like “moo”.
破po break, and you hear the sound“pow”

chinese characters more than simply phonetic

I believe that some components of the characters have more than a fonetic usage, they also offer a meaning
原yuan original,源yuan origin, where comes the original，like a basin of the river.
象xiang image像xiang resemble, seems like a image
因 yin cause, because姻 yin marriage, because of a woman 女nu
晚 wan evening,日ri a sun that is avoided免mian
帽mao hat, 冒mao risk巾jin cloth that protect the eyes from the risk
堡bao castle, a place over earth 土tu that you defend 保
仙xian a sage person 人ren on the south mountains 山shan
嫁jia marry a woman, a woman 女nu that finds a new home 家jia
伍wu squad of five五 wu soldiers 人 person
Of course in the more modern characters this type of use is probably not employed, because this form of constructing characters is not known as a modern use.
You will find thousands of characters that make sense using this argument and thousands that appear to not have sense, maybe these are not even the best examples.
I know these affirmations are highly expeculative, but if you work with the history of the chinese characters, you problably know how speculative it is.

Adapting after remembering the hanzi to more serious studies of Chinese characters

If you want to move from more serious studies after completing the remembering the hanzi, should not be difficult, since, you will learn that most of the techniques used by James Heisig are the same used to really form the characters. Of course you will have to maintain a vivid idea what is invention and what is really used to form the characters, like亠 is nothing related with a cap, but you could make an association with the head that generally means this component and a lid, that likewise covers something like the cap to the head. The same for 寸cun that not represents glue, but a hand, but you can make an association: when you hold something, is like having glue in your hands and you don’t let them fall. The 㐱 zhen cocktail means thick hair, you can imagine there’s nothing more unpleasant then finding a thick hair in your beverage. 攵pu a taskmaster, is the component form of 攴 pu, strike, a right hand and a branch of wood used to strike, what a severe taskmaster would do to correct his subordinates.

Of course the study of Chinese characters is highly speculative and will not really make you any harm a story that is not considered the truth (generally there is multiple explanations for the construction of a character), but if you really want to study the history of Chinese characters, it will be more useful to learn less “colorful” images, although they are more difficult to remember; if you just want to talk in Chinese the mnemonics methods of the remembering the hanzi are good.

Comparisons of the Western use of tones and Chinese tones

In English we already use tones to mark the intentions of the phrase; try saying “house.”, “house!”,“house?”. The question mark “?” correspond roughly to the second, rising tone; the exclamation mark “!” to the fourth, falling tone. The third, falling rising tone, to a very grave sound, try saying as you sing a very low music tone; and the first, high tone, to a tenor sustaining a note like in a opera “Ahhhh”. Try listening to Chinese phrases, if possible slowly and words that you know to get used to them. Tones are not difficult as it sounds.

Mnemonics for remembering the color of the tones

This is a example of a story that could help you remember the color of the tones for the considered standard system. If you use this system you see the colors so much and they are so few that I feel that they ever will be needed, but is always good to help your memory. As always, if there is a story that works better for you, use it and not mine, this is just a example how you should construct such mnemonics; for example the Chinese associate yellow with earth and black with water, green and blue are sometimes the same color, etc.

First, high tone, red as the color of a high-tempered person.

Second, rising tone, orange that grows (rises) on trees.

Third, falling raising tone, green as the low fields of grass (low pitch).

Fourth, falling tone, blue as the falling rain.

Fifth, neutral tone, black, the color that absorbs all other colors, making no distinction, neutral.

Learn Chinese characters pronunciations with others characters pronunciations

Because my studies of Chinese include only reading Chinese texts, I don’t have a good knowledge of the pronunciation and tones of the words. I have seen methods of learning the Chinese characters, learn the tones, but not the pronunciation. I started recently to use a method created by me: learn a character’s pronunciation making an association with another of the same pronunciation. Of course this is nothing really new since it is a known method of forming the characters, but for the ones that have not such an indication, or the phonetic component only resemble the pronunciation (which leads to even more confusion), this method could be useful. This method seems to work better if you already have a good level of Chinese, but I have successfully applied to characters that I didn’t know another with the same pronunciation, and learn in the process two characters pronunciations! If you don’t have already a method for remembering the tones, you could only use associations with characters that use the same tone (which seems to be complicated sometimes). Here are some examples of associations that I use:

贫pin poor, have no品 pin goods

解jie explain, everything 皆jie can be explained

宽kuan wide, if you have 款 kuan founds you have a wide range of options

委wei entrust, designate, committee, you entrust tasks to powerful 威wei people

败(敗)bai defeat, when you are defeated you show a white 白bai flag

负(負)fu defeat, lose, when you are defeat or lose everything you have to turn back and go home 复fu return.

Of course this should be more effective if you use the characters that you already know well the pronunciation and not mine, and the ones that the story makes more sense to you. You are free to share interesting ones if you wish to help.

Chinese language, an easy and fun language to learn

Chinese is the easiest language in the world. There is for example no thing as plural, feminine and masculine, verb tense, and has a simple grammar. The words are composed as a single character, pronounced as a single syllable (sometimes they are doubled to express a more defined meaning and avoid confusion with words that have the same sound). These characters are simply majestic, they are so beautiful that people tattoo it in their body even if sometimes they really don’t know their meaning!

For example mountain is written 山shan, a clear picture of three mountains; mouth is口kou; eye is 目mu an eye, an eye and the middle part is the pupil; 人ren a picture of two legs; 木 a tree and its roots, 林lin a forest; 日ri sun, day, and 月yue a moon, together they mean 明 ming bright, clear; 女nu is a woman, a more stylized person, and 子 a small baby, together they mean good, well 好hao. As you can see, they are beautiful, easy and fun to learn.

It is seemingly difficult for Europeans and Americans because, when you talk about learn another language, you generally say about learning the European languages and English, that are the most influential and rich countries, and most of them make part of the same family of language, the romance languages: languages that have its origins in Latin, with exception of German and English that, because the Roman empire was so influential in its time great part of Latin was introduced to English at least. This makes the impression that these Languages are easier, when they are only more similar to your language.

Of course you have heard about the terrible tones, but, guess what, you already use them. For example, when you say “car.” “car?” “car!”, pay attention; you are already using tones! It is not so difficult as it sounds.