> Also good luck learning to read Chinese or Japanese without rote learning a few hundred characters. Even native speakers learn them by repetition.
I've tried this for years with Japanese kanji and never really got very far. Just didn't work well, they largely were just a big blob of lines.
Then I found an Android app (Kanji Study) that mixes this in with informational screens that break down kanji into radicals and puts them alongside a bunch of multi-kanji words and uses them in sentences so we can see them in context, and it's actually been working.
Learning to read Chinese is done by learning to write Chinese. The strict (but structured) stroke order while writing becomes part of muscle memory, and in turn, becomes a kind of kinesthetic mnemonic device while reading.
The app I mentioned has that too, but stepping back and giving context helps me more.
For example, 語 being composed of 言, 五, and 口 reduces it down to 3 things instead of 14 strokes. This is an easy one since the parts are distinct, but plenty aren't nearly as obvious, like the left side of 教
I've tried this for years with Japanese kanji and never really got very far. Just didn't work well, they largely were just a big blob of lines.
Then I found an Android app (Kanji Study) that mixes this in with informational screens that break down kanji into radicals and puts them alongside a bunch of multi-kanji words and uses them in sentences so we can see them in context, and it's actually been working.