What's a good way to help me to remember new kanji.

[asdffdsa]

Sorry, I'm sorta in a hurry right now.

[Yoshio]

i'm no expert, but you'll probably remember the actual kanji pretty well if you just write it over and over again, although i dont know how much this will help you with learning the readings

[cris]

the basic kanji's are from shapes of objects like person, tree, day, and so on. That may better help you if you're a pictorial learner.

[cris]

Oh, ask a chinese person too since they are more familiar with the kanjis =-P

[greg]

Go buy the book called "Read Japanese Today" by Len Walsh. It was written back in the 60's. There's a few slight inaccuracies, but it's an excellent way to start learning your first 300 kanji or so. He shows the progression from the origional ancient Chinese pictographs to the ancient kanji to modern kanji.

If you want to learn Japanese kanji, don't talk to Chinese people as Cris suggests. Chinese characters (or hanzi as they are called) have evolved since Japan first borrowed them. They've become more simplified and they use them differently. People often assume that Chinese people can read Japanese and vice versa, but it's not true.

One classic example is tegami, or letter that you would write to someone. The Japanese kanji for this would be the characters for hand and paper together, but a chinese person seeing this will think it's "toilet paper."

For an example of how the two writing systems have evolved, take toki or "time." If you read Len Walsh's book, you'll learn that the radicals involved are sun, earth, and measure. The hanzi for this is simply sun and measure, I'm told. A long time ago they were the same, but now they're different.

[GokuMew2]

If you know some basic kanji, it becomes easier to learn new ones. Like if you know some of the radicals, it becomes easier to remember how to write more complicated kanji.

For example, the kanji for ganbaru, 頑張る
The first character I remember by thinking moto 元 on the left, and the right side of the kanji jun 順 from Junichi 順一 (this is the first name of my favorite seiyuu) on the right. The the second character is yumi 弓 and nagai 長.

Just try to break kanji down into their smaller parts, I guess.

[Shio]

I like doing it by remembering what shapes the kanji is made up of. For example, to me, the kanji for fish is 'A box with a hat, tail and 3 legs'. Cat is 'The letter J with a box and stitches'. Somehow I manage to remember those ridiculous little descriptions.

[tsuki no miko]

I think memorizing kanji according to its radicals is the best way, too. I can't give actual examples right now but it helps to memorize other more complicated kanji.

Also, kanji usage like greg said is different according to the country. I'm used to Chinese Characters cuz I'm Korean but Japanese kanji is kinda like the shortened version of what I know so it's a whole lot different.

[fujyoshi]

I learn Kanji from typing stuff. Most of it's just visual though. I'd have to learn how to write it.