Recently, I've been using the Mnemonics feature in Skritter more and more. I have begun to focus on Characters a little more than words and have otherwise found them very difficult to remember.

I've also been 'converted' to the power of Mnemonics after reading a couple of memory books and being astounded by my new-found ability to memorise a list of 100 items read aloud to me once (I considered myself to have a 'bad memory', a label that I now know to be false!)

Looking at the shared Mnemonics for some of the characters for 'inspiration' I have noticed that there are a huge variety of ways that people use this function. I thought it might be useful to start a thread to discuss how people are using it and share ideas of what works for you. Sort of like a best practice guide for new users, or those new to Mnemonics as well as to get a fresh angle on things myself.

For example, in this thread Aurora (AKA Donna) explains her method in detail:

http://www.skritter.cn/forum/topic?id=75532574

My 2 cents, for what they are worth, are with regards to the use of different formatting to distinguish the different parts of my Mnemonics (I create a much more detailed visual image and use a much more simplified version in Skritter as a reminder):

Bold type: *definition/Hesig keyword*

Italics: _Pronunciation_ (Usually I use the first Chinese word that I associate with the sound as I speak much better than I read or write)

apostrophes: 'the definition of a component character'

capital letters: TONE INDICATION (I use emotion for the tones 1st: boring, 2nd: happy, 3rd: puzzled/confused, 4th: angry)

For example:

肌 ji1：to get *muscle* you need to use a BORING _chicken_ exercise machine for a 'month' next to the 'table'

(In the iOS app, and the web version, using **/__ etc. changes the formatting of words that make it much more visual)

So I visualise myself climbing on a huge metal Chicken exercise machine in the gym in my Roman Room (I feel the cold metal), next to a table and doing the most repetitive movement (hearing it creaking under me), yawning even as it is so boring but watching my muscles get bigger as a huge calendar on the table (my symbol for month) ticks of the months.

So, Mnemonics: how do you like yours?

I've been using mnemonics for about 20 months now, but only recently realised two related things which are causing me to slightly alter a lot of my previous mnemonics.

1. The power of visual memory - I realised this after trying the Roman Room method; now I try and give all my mnemonics a definite place.
2. The importance of mnemonic info being real things from my life, not just imaginary.

Example: 广 when this is a component of other characters I remember this as Cave (Heisig). Previously this was just an abstract notion, and with different characters I visualised it in different imaginary places. I now remember it as a particular cave which i slept in one night whilst hiking; my mnemonics for characters containing this component are now all located there. I have found this has greatly increased their effectiveness.

(I am studying Japanese). Everyone is very different. While I share my mnemonics, I have no idea if they help others, but they help me. I have memorized many basic radicals, and begin by listing them separated by "+"'s, with an = for the definition. Then I try to tie the two together (e.g. flesh + double = stomach, think of a fat guy with a doubled paunch).

For pronunciation, in the few cases where there is an English word that sounds similar, I put it in brackets []. But Japanese and English don't have many of those, so I usually try to find a commonly used Japanese word with similar sound, and use it. If it is an exact or nearly exact match, I say "sounds like ___". If it is a fair match (e.g. one has a long vowel and the other doesn't), I say "sounds kinda like". If I can only find a word that begins the same (but can at least give me a hint), I say "sounds almost like". Occasionally I will give a hint from commonly popular anime or manga, but I don't know many of those. I try to make it a fun puzzle, as those stick in my head better, but I am not too creative--sorry!

To start I edit each of the definitions for the Heisig characters so it only has the meanings given in the book. But I only submit those changes if they are wrong (the new characters in the 6th edition list are often wrong) so I don't screw up the Skritter database.

I try to put my mnemonics in the order I need to write them with the meaning of the character done last. I originally wrote it last because I thought it would act as good way to triger my memory of the meanings when going from character to meaning. That's because studying the Skritter Heisig list doesn't let you study from character to meaning. I now feel that it might have been better to put the meaning first in the sentence (however I want to be consistant so I am not changing now). The reason I think it might have been better to put the meaning first is because that would make it the subject of the sentence. That would increase the importance of the meaning in the mnemonice. So learning the meaning to character becomes easier. I view going from character to meaning kind of like division and going from meaning to character like learing multiplication. You have to know multiplication supper well before you are able to do division. Nick said he used some kind of hack to create the Heisig list and adding the ability to go from character to meaning would require a complete rewrite of the database so he wasn't planing on adding the ability to do characters to reading. I think I may use something like Anki to learn characters to meaning since I don't think I know it well enough.

For all of my primitives and meanings I use bold uppercase text. I use () and italics for optional text that some may find make the mnemonic too wordy. If a primitive isn't in the Skritter list below the main mnemonic of every character containing that primitive I type the word Primitive: followed by the meaning of the primitive. On the line below that I write the mnemonic to the primitive. This leads to some long text in the mnemonic sections, sometimes longer than the mnemonic area can show. It's also the reason I feel Skritter needs to add a scrolling feature in the mnemonic sections for mobile Skritter.

All this writing about mnemonics got me thinking about some features I would like to see added. I would like to see a way to see the number of mnemonics created by different people. I want to see a discription of how they formated their mnemonics. And the ability to set their mnemonics as your default.

I first try to positively identify the separate components and likely meaning of each character through research. Towards that purpose, I use chineseetymology.org, zhongwen.com, zdic.net, wiktionary.org, translate.google.org and other resources (but mainly the first two).
Based on that, I try to build what I feel is a historically accurate picture of its meaning. I have found that every character has its own story and that some have a very interesting historical background. I sometimes lose myself in the latter, but it is all good as I am learning a lot about Chinese culture and am able to tie that to the characters, thereby reinforcing their meaning.
As an example, a character I just learned (which did not require any research):

-============================================================-
寿
shòu
long life; old age; lifespan

Your lifespan is determined by the length (寸 cun4) of the life line of your hand (手 shou3, phonetic). At least according to palm readers from ancient China until today.
Interestingly, the bronze characters seem to refer to hands taking fruit (or wanting to take fruit) from the tree of life. Immortality has always been a much desired commodity, even in ancient China.

Tone: tracing the life line down your hand.

寿面 (shou4mian4): birthday (longevity) noodles
-============================================================-

The downside of this approach is that it is a bit disheartening when you click on "progress" and realize that on average you can only learn about 8 new characters with a good 5 to 6 hours of studying. Still, I think it is a good thing to go slow and steady and to allow the mind time to properly absorb things, at least in the beginning.
I am now at 219 characters, but I figure that after the first 600 to 800 characters I will have a firm grasp of all the character components and a good foundation to learn the next 600 to 800 characters at a faster rate, with an ever increasing focus on vocabulary acquisition in the process of doing so.
Once I will finish NPCR book 2 I want to work my way through the Chinese Breeze Graded Reader series. The series assumes a knowledge of 500 characters. Once I will have finished NPCR book 3 or 4 I want to start with the Graded Chinese Reader series. These all come with MP3 CDs for self-study.

I use the Heisig meanings and when I get stuck I use Google suggest to brain storm. For example if I am creating a mnemonic that contains the primitive street, I type "street f" and google will suggest "street fighter" and other words starting with "f". I go through every letter of the alphabet and write the word combos I feel are good into a word doc. Then I look at the other primitives in the character; usually the combos have already been created and are in the doc. Last I make a mnemonic with the help of the word combos I've made.

Ｉ like studying like 约翰, but not all the time cause I like some speed. Often the composition of the parts are enough of a mnemonic for me, though i often confuse some characters with similar composition for example 忘 and 忙. I rarely put the etymology in the mnemonics though, it's usually straightforward enough to remember automatically. At least when I see the character, even if I forgot how to write it only being given the definition.

If the character is too complex to easily remember, I make or use a mnemonic that is a simple description of what the character seems to depict in my mind. I hardly ever use them as hints though so I don't really have a lot of motivation for making or choosing one. I often have a more abstract mnemonic in my head.

I am sure that a good use of mnemonics like the other posters described above can help your memory a lot. I myself prefer to rely on repetition when skrittering more than on actively memorizing each and every character.