here is how one counts in Chinese:

一  one

二  two

三  three

it's a start but you get the idea that there is a method behind the characters, and simple memorization is not all that is required.

I hope this encourages you to look into the topic a little more.  

I will be posting more characters with the story behind them, to pique your interest and hopefully get you studying this fascinating system of communication.  

check it out for yourselves

at the bottom of the news.google.com page, look for the Japanese version by finding

日本   -  Japan

(the Japanese used Chinese characters as their first system of writing and so this lesson will be useful for you in Japan as well)

the symbol for moon started off as a crescent but was changed to this:

月  - moon

when used with the symbol for the sun, it means light

日  - sun

明  - light

two characters combined are supposed to take up the same amount of space as a single character so unfortunately they tend to get smaller

remembering how to write the name of the months is very simple.  since the Chinese used a lunar calendar, the first month is:

一  one

月  - moon, month

一 月   -  January

二月    -  February

etc

so you may be asking yourself, why didn't she post any phonetic pronunciations?

the reason is that the pronunciation associated with each symbol changes depending on the dialect - Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujian, etc.

People in China can communicate with each other just with the characters.

The way they do this is to trace the character on their left hand with their right index finger.  The order in which they do this is very important, so this will be the topic of another post or diary.  If you trace the characters in the wrong order, even though your character is correct, people will not understand what you are trying to say.  

Also, my computer doesn't allow for the system of tonal inflections which is usually written in roman letters something like this:   hâo or hào (two more inflections in Mandarin which I can't show here)

力
means power

it is not to be confused with these other radicals that resemble it very much

刀  which means knife

几 which means table

方 which means square

power is used with this important radical which is easy to remember:

田  means rice paddy or field

when combined, they form the character for man as in male person:

男  - someone who uses his force in the field or rice paddy = male

(you may want to use a larger view of the screen to see these characters larger)

女  is the symbol for woman

it looks like a folding chair so it's easy to remember.  you will see it on the door of the ladies' w.c. in China

子  is the symbol for child

it started out as a drawing of a baby in swaddling clothes

when the two symbols are combined, they form the word "nice" or "pleasant"  =  a woman with her child

孜  means pleasant, nice agreeable

one last pictogram for today

口  this one means mouth

囗  a slightly larger version of the same one means enclosure

Learning kanji by pictorial reasoning looks very limited to me.
To learn many of them, be prepared for massive formal association.
To give some examples, I will bother you with some kanji in mathematics.

The kanji expression for "a line" is
直線 (2 kanji symbols)
- this is total 23 strokes to represent a straight line!

The second kanji 線 means "a line" in general;
its left radical 糸 means "a string";
the right radical should give Chinese phonetic hint,
though I do not get that, recognizing only the components
白 ("white") and 水 ("water").

The kanji 直 means "straight", surely.

For a further perspective, "a curve" in kanji is 曲線,
where 曲 means "to bend" or (in music) "to compose".

"A surface" is 曲面.
"A point" is a simpler object, 点 (9 strokes).

In Japanese, most Kanji typically have two readings: the Chinese onjomi and the native kunjomi.
(Often there are several onjomi or kunjomi reading variants, or only an onjomi reading,
but for the beginning it is useful to know two most usual readings.)

For example, 直す　("to repair", or "to make it straight" if you like)
reads "na o - su", but the line 直線 reads "cho ku - sen".

Usually, words compounded of two or more kanji are read in onjomi, or at least each kanji in the same reading.
But 日曜日 ("Sunday") is an obvious exception; the reading is "ni chi - yoo - bi".
The kanji 日　("Sun" or "day") is read first in onjomi, then in kunjomi.

In general, a kanji may have several distinct meanings and readings,
or several kanji may represent the same meaning (like both 店 and 屋 are used to name shops).
But usually things are not that terrible.

here are a few characters to learn today:

水  water --> it's easy to remember because  it started off as 3 lines, one for each of the river banks, and one for the river, like this

巛  which does means river

土  means earth  -->  it started as a flower growing out of the earth, but lost its petals at the top

it is almost identical to the ideogram for the following (but I haven't been able to find the history of this one - where the 1st horizontal bar is longer)

士  means scholar

I will try to do a re-capitulation and quiz if people are interested.  so far, I think that makes about 20 characters!  

If

人  means person
大 means big

what does

大人  mean?

if

人  means person
囗 means enclosure

what do you think

囚  means?

Is there a symbol for 'go eat ship?'

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes