Sorry if this post seems naive, but I'm a total beginner to Chinese characters and I'm up to about 276 "words" according to Duome. Some characters such as hǎo 好 (mother and child) are easy, and I've kind of worked out how some characters look a bit like the meaning. For example chá 茶 looks like a gas burner that you'd put an old fashioned kettle on, and in Yīngguó 英国 , I always picture the English drinking tea. Shuǐ 水 looks like water splashing etc . Cat and dog 猫 狗 look a bit like the respective animals and they both start with the same radical (?) but when it comes to more complex characters, it gets more difficult. At this stage I'm concenrating on recognising the characters first.
Are there any simple guides, childrens learning resources or mnemonics for remembering Chinese characters. I know that Taiwan uses bopomofo, which I don't know much about, but it seems to use radicals as a grounding. Maybe that's a better way to go.
I find it difficult when we see a 汉字 on Duolingo without knowing anything about its meaning.