Remembering Chinese Characters including the tone

传 chuán This means to pass on. Tome mnemonic: Imagine someone waving their hand in order to pass on something 传 统         traditional chuán tǒng

切 qiē first tone in its original meaning of "cut" 切 qiè i t is forth tone when it means close or another of its derivative meanings I think of this as a training going from the station to the cutting. Originally it is in the station (first tone), then it is in the cutting (forth tone). 切勿 迟延 。 Qiè wù chíyán . Be sure not to delay. 切 菜 qiē cài cut up vegetables

婉 边 wǎn biān T his means the edge of a bowl. A bowl is shaped like a third tone symbol, that is why it is third tone. The edge of a bowl is at the top of the bowl, that is why edge is first tone.        

建 电 站 jiàn diàn zhàn T his means "build a power station". All are fourth tone. When we think of how heavy all the materials for building a power station are, we can understand why all syllables are fourth tone. 

带 来 dài lái This means to bring or to lead to. Remembering tones: If I am on a bicycle, then going downhill fast leads to being able to go uphill.

子 女 zǐ nǚ Means sons and daughters. Both characters are third tone. This is because the parents of the sons and daughters are so depressed because they have so many children.

I use the following Android tools for learning Chinese: Pleco Chinese dictionary Google translate Ankdroid with the "Most Common 3000 Hanzi" flashcards For this blog, I use https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary The think I find most difficult to remember is the tone of each character. Here are the mnemonics I use for each tone: Tone Colour Place Place 2 Tone of voice Shape of symbol 1 red Station "flat at the top" 2 green Up hill Field doubtful pointing upwards like a twig 3 blue Supermarket resigned, depressed curved 4 purple Down hill Home emphatic pointing downwards