Learning Mandarin Characters
Learning Mandarin script is a massive task, best undertaken from the age of about 2. Unless you've grown up in China, you are unlikely to have benefitted that early learning process. For westerners who come to it later, its quite a challenge.There is no discernible system, no reliable relationship between characters and the sounds. Of course some pre-fixed and post-fixed characters give an indication as to tone, but there are many exceptions.
As far as I can tell the most recommended way to learn them is the hard way, to practise writing the characters and saying them, then using a spaced recall app such as the brilliant Pleco to gradually build up your knowledge base.
Trying to read a mandarin script without adequate knowledge of the characters is like driving down a pot-holed road where the potholes are actually sink holes.
You're doing fine one minute and then you hit a dead stop. You can stare at a character that you don't know for as long as you like,
but its not going to suddenly speak to you, and the only way to move on is to reach for the Pleco app, and draw it in.
But, but, but...
Many of the characters do have elements in common, and remind one of something you've seen, heard, an action or a picture.
And I think there is scope for linking the sounds to the characters in a fun and imaginative way.
Not much scope, I admit, but some.
Another point is that an ideal system would link character to sound to meaning, but that is ultra-difficult. My experience of learning Mandarin so far has been 90% through audio. My knowledge of the sounds of Mandarin is much greater than my knowledge of the characters.
Therefore if I can get the character to link to sound, I'm halfway there, and if the meaning happens to be linked as well, well that's a bonus.