# Im giving up on mnmonics please change my mind **URL:** \ **Category:** HanziHero\ **Tags:** blog\ **Created:** [September 28, 2026, 6:59pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796 "2026-09-28T18:59:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![daposto](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@daposto](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/daposto)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 6:59pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/1 "2026-09-28T18:59:37Z")
I have been on this platform for some time, but progress is slow; the more I try to use it, the harder it gets for some reason. I boiled it down to the fact that rawdogging learning characters for 2 years has become counterproductive. I have had some months of inactivity here and there, but I find it hard to build up my motivation to get back into the game, or keep doing my lessons. The biggest question, of course, is how motivation is gained or lost, and I believe I narrowed it down to a few things. Not putting my knowledge into context, mnemonics being hard, and the SRS algorithm not prioritizing words. **Not putting my knowledge into context** The biggest realisation I had that may explain my lack of progress is partially due to not investing in putting my knowledge into direct context. I believed the claims of others saying they learned thousands of characters in a few months. So that made me think I should just try to really focus on studying characters and components, and totally forget about words or sentences in the beginning, or how language is used in practice. But it then becomes a very mechanised, quite repetitive and boring process of studying characters with SRS. My SRS on HH only seems to reiterate characters and components; I can’t remember the last time it trained a word with me. I think this kind of reinforced the idea for me that I don’t know anything yet, even though with the 400+ characters I know, I can already read basic HSK 2 texts. **Mnmonics only teach a narrow part** And even now that I do know 400+ characters, I get thrown off the bus if someone says a simple Chinese phrase to me; I can’t speak, I can’t really hear or write. Because all effort has gone into silent character repetitions in my head, associating characters with strange mnemonics which then relate to sounds. I may know the pinyin mapping, but when I hear it in practice, I have a hard time getting back to that meaning or what the character looks like. **Mnmonics are sometimes a bit out there on HH** Even though I love HH, I do feel the mnemonics sometimes are a bit awkward; I don’t seem to easily remember the relations in the story. ```auto [shu-] Sherlock is in the [4] bathroom of the [-_] house and the tile floor is covered with 米 rice, investigating a peculiar case. He stands in the corner as he tries to determine the 数 number of 米 rice grains on the floor, thinking that the 数 number may contain a clue as to why the 米 rice is there. A 女 woman is next to him, near the door, crying hysterically at the fact a large 数 number of precious 米 rice has been stolen and scattered across the tile floor. There are also a 数 number of 攵 foreman walking around the bathroom, trying to find clues as to who did the 米 rice crime ``` Like here: rice crime, women, foremen, counting rice — quite a complete scene going on with many various elements. ```auto [bi-] Bigfoot is in the [4] bathroom of the [-an] pawn shop, helping them repair their toilet. 亻 Slenderman, who works there, pulls out a 日 sun from his pocket to help illuminate things, which is quite 便 convenient. Bigfoot finishes the repairs, but notices his hair has fallen all over the 一 ground. A walking broom comes in and 便 conveniently sweeps it up. ``` Here there are quite a lot of elements to remember: sun out of pocket, which for some reason is convenient, then hair all of a sudden shedding, then a walking broom coming in… I find it hard to memorize all those small parts that would never ever happen in correlation to each other. ```auto [ji-] Jimmy Neutron is in the [3] basement of the [-ao] barn where he is trying to invent a walking 脚 foot. He gets a live 厶 elbow that he ordered (it still has a 卩 postage stamp on it) and covers it with 月 moon 土 soil and zaps it with his ray gun. Poof! It turns into a 脚 foot that then hops around the basement, knocking over some of the milk bottles. ``` Inventing a walking foot by ordering a live elbow (with a poststamp on it), covers it with 月 moon 土 soil and zaps it with his ray gun … So many elements that are so separate from each other but somehow make a story that makes a little bit of sense in the context of Jummy Neutron. _Anyhow, those are random examples,_ but often a lot of those mnemonics are quite complicated, with basically a whole scene going on with many different moving elements and unrelated facts coming together to form this scene. Maybe I do lack quite some creative imagination, and this method is failing on me a bit, but I also feel like mnemonics are not that vivid and random to me. Maybe because it’s because the mnmonics are not created by my self? … Anyways, moral of the story, I know mnemonics were not a 1 size all solution, but I also felt it promised me quick gains and rewards for time spent. I spent months learning, then months trying to push through boring repetition without reconsidering whether I should maybe do something else aside from learning characters. I usually do not learn more than 15 minutes a day, so it was like one SRS session, sometimes combined with new learnings. But especially after the 400+ mark, I spend all my time in SRS sessions; I rarely get to learn anything new. My backlog is just to big now, and I can’t seem to keep up. And now that I’m stuck in just repeating characters and components, I find it incredibly hard to get my dopamine from this and to enjoy learning. This just makes me forget or be consistent in doing repetitions. I know that 15-20 minutes is too little for good language learning, but I hoped this was enough to gradually learn characters; that turned into isolated learning behavior, which I am moving away from now. I will now invest more time into actually trying to read simple texts, listening to videos, or learning songs. Maybe I find out that by doing that I actually learn characters more naturally instead of ‘rawdogging’ them. Am I the only one feeling like this or is it more common? And if HH/mnmonic approach has worked for you, what would you say was the defining approach that really helped you? Was it like putting in more time, effort?.. ---
**Author:** ![SammyJammy](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/user_avatar/community.hanzihero.com/sammyjammy/32/1944_2.png) [@SammyJammy](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/SammyJammy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/2 "2026-09-28T20:54:35Z")
Hello! Just wanted to share a bit of my perspective on this! I started Hanzi Hero just nearing 4 months ago, and in that time I have accumulated approximately 600 characters, and I am nearing having covered all the way up to HSK3 in that time. I also spend a lot of time both on Hanzi Hero and outside Hanzi Hero. I am going to detail this more in my study log soon, but to summarize I have a daily habit of my Hanzi Hero flashcards (including doing extra study for problem items), external reading on DuChinese (to get characters within context), and lots of comprehensible input. I can 100% understand the frustration with the mnemonics, some of them can be pretty out there and hard to fully internalize, but even with these I find that as I encounter these characters more and more, the mnemonic fades away and my understanding of a character is almost instant. Mnemonics are great for your very first introductions to a character, it gives you something to grasp on, but they also aren’t the end-all. For a vast majority of the characters I have, I actually couldn’t tell you what the mnemonic really is anymore, it’s more like a rope to help you climb a steep cliff edge, but once you’ve gotten over that steep edge you don’t need the rope anymore. I agree with your assessment though, Hanzi Hero is the rope to help you up the first steep edge, but there is still a lot more mountain to climb! I believe more time spent reading stories, experiencing characters in context, comprehensible input, all of that will do wonders for your character memorization. Learning the words on HH as well is also very important, not only for your vocabulary, but these words further solidify that character into your brain. I often find that I might struggle with a character for a little bit, until I start getting some compound words using that character, then it just starts clicking. While the words on HH aren’t fully in context, it’s still more context than just a lone character provides. If I had to give you some advice, it would definitely be to diversify your studying! Learning just characters would certainly overload anyone, would make motivation hard. On HH, I do about 13 words a day and on average like 5-6 characters depending on how many components I need to do. The words exist to solidify previous knowledge, and the characters are new knowledge coming in, and this pace has been really good for me. For some I think it can feel a bit slow (especially reading claims of people learning thousands of characters in a couple months), but when you think about it if you do 6 characters a day for a full year, you’re at nearly 2,200 characters after just one year, with figures already stating fluency to be at about 2,000-3,000 characters. I hope you find your motivation again and keep working hard! Even small steps a day add up to a lot! Chinese is 100% a frontloaded language, the cliff get’s less steep as time goes on! ---
**Author:** ![cslates05](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@cslates05](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/cslates05)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 11:23am UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/3 "2026-09-29T11:23:02Z")
I feel @SammyJammy nailed it on the head! I would like to add that for the mnemonics that seem too bizarre, try creating your own! You can use the edit mnemonic feature to write your own stories. Even if they still are all over the place, the mnemonic will definitely be easier to recall since it came from your brain at some point. If your review queue is too large, I would recommend putting a tiny bit of extra time into the characters that you continually have trouble with. Every time I finish a review session, I like to hit the “review missed items” button and review those characters one more time. And then repeat with the missed characters from the second review and so on (not as time consuming as it sounds, normally only takes 1 or 2 very short review sessions). If there are some where the mnemonic doesn’t work for me I try and add another note in the “notes” section to help it stick. Only other advice I have is to double down on why you want to learn Chinese! I would highly recommend using the priority queue to add in vocabulary from whatever realm you want to be using Chinese as a method of communication. For example, if you want to play minecraft in chiense, choose some words from your favorite game and add them to the queue (block, sword, axe, etc…)! Even if they are out of hsk order, HanziHero should make you learn the necessary subcomponents along the way. Ultimately your brain will never find it easy to remember something you’re not motivated to learn (Self Determination Theory). Consistency always wins out in the end! ---
**Author:** ![daposto](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@daposto](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/daposto)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 7:31pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/4 "2026-09-29T19:31:02Z")
How much time do you invest in HH every day? Your progress is impressive, but I am not sure if I can learn 4-6 a day, i feel that that amount would get over my head way too quickly. After how many repetitions would you say your mnmonic sticks around? I wanted to do that rate but as i did that every day - my 30 new tasks - i quickly found my self having to repeat more srs because i could not keep up with the incoming stream of new things ---
**Author:** ![daposto](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@daposto](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/daposto)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/5 "2026-09-29T19:33:43Z")
Thanks, good tips, it’s very true, knowing why one wants to know the language is a big part of the equation to gain the motivation. ---
**Author:** ![gnargnar](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/user_avatar/community.hanzihero.com/gnargnar/32/1917_2.png) [@gnargnar](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/gnargnar)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 8:42pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/6 "2026-09-29T20:42:53Z")
Words definitely help characters stick, for me. Recently I’ve been confusing 突 and 哭 at a glance, for example, even though I wouldn’t have any trouble distinguishing common words those 汉字 are in from each other, like 突然 from 大哭. When I read a two-character word (let alone a sentence) I get more context and my human memory loves to have context (hence why mnemonics are so contextual and oddly specific)! I mostly avoid learning the mnemonics unless I’m particularly struggling with a character. Otherwise I try to let component recognition, brute-force, and seeing the character in unlocked words do the memorizing lift for me. SRS can be manipulated to up your exposure. I’ll add more dictionary words to help me remember a character better sometimes. For example I associated 脑 too closely with 电脑 for a little while，so I added 脑子 to help me re-learn ‘brain’ separate from ‘computer’. Mess with your word limit and your review order settings in options for a few days, I bet you’ll find a flow that’s more engaging for you now. If you’ve been practicing nothing but characters then yes, your character recognition skills are going to be a lot better than your reading or listening skills, let alone writing or speaking skills. Great news, that can all change! That you’ve learned this much already is proof that you can indeed learn Mandarin. The listening will come once you start finding space for it in your schedule. And the characters will stick more when you get in reading time. It’s all a balance 🙂 I recommend [Lazy Chinese](https://www.lazychinese.com/) for a great free learning resource with videos of conversations that are graded by HSK levels with subtitles and transcripts available. Great way to practice your reading+listening together. tldr give the mnemonics a rest if they aren’t working for you, tweak your review settings, and emphasize other language skills more if you want to see them grow. Keep learning! ---
**Author:** ![SammyJammy](https://community-cdn.hanzihero.com/user_avatar/community.hanzihero.com/sammyjammy/32/1944_2.png) [@SammyJammy](https://community.hanzihero.com/u/SammyJammy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://community.hanzihero.com/t/im-giving-up-on-mnmonics-please-change-my-mind/7796/7 "2026-09-29T23:15:51Z")
For some estimates, I haven’t really timed how much time I spend on HH each day, but probably around an hour to an hour and a half a day. I don’t expect that figure to increase too much, as time has gone on I’ve definitely started having a lot more reviews but for me the pace is manageable. My routine looks like extra review of recent mistakes for the past 2 days and a review of the previous day’s most recently learned, and doing my reviews and my new lessons. Currently I’m getting around 130-150 reviews every day, and I expect that figure to increase to about 180-200 before flatlining (though my estimates could be off). It is certainly a lot of time, and for the honest truth I have given up a lot of the free time I have towards studying Chinese. It has become a driving force in my life though, while it can still be tiring, it doesn’t exhaust me like work does but instead uplifts me! To answer your question about how many repetitions a mnemonic sticks around, it honestly varies a lot. There are some characters like 人 that you see literally everywhere, being one of the most simple and most common characters. You see this character everywhere both inside and outside of HH, so I never even needed a mnemonic for that one. Now compare this to a character like 主, to which I had been finding difficulty having this one really stick. It had taken about 4 reviews of this character before it finally started sticking. Part of the added difficulty I think with this character not sticking was that I didn’t really find it popping up in any of the content I was reading or listening to. This doesn’t factor in encounters with the compound words using this character as well. Just to give you a figure, I’m going to say it takes anywhere between 0 and 4 reviews before the mnemonic starts fading and the character just starts sticking, but it certainly could take more or less. It’s important to mention that comparison is the thief of joy. I am someone who is dedicating a lot of time towards Chinese, I have extremely high motivation. Earlier on when I first started HH, I was not near as consistent as I am now. This is being mentioned a lot in this thread, but it’s important to find the pace that works for you personally, not feeling like you have to follow the pace of someone with a completely different set of circumstances. And as always, what works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you! It can be overwhelming, but there is no right or wrong way to learn a language! It is better that you stay consistent and find the pace for you, rather then pushing for a pace that isn’t achievable for you, and eventually losing all motivation to even try. What you will find is that as you build out your consistency at a sustainable pace, your motivation will continue to grow. You may find after some time of doing just 10 new items a day, you can increase to 15. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. I am always down to answer any questions you may have, so if you have any more questions please don’t hesitate to ask 🙂