Coming from speaking English, it’s tough that there’s almost no vocabulary overlap.
When I learned Spanish as a teenager, most of my vocabulary learning was via making connections to English words. “Bibliotecha” sounds like it has to do with books, so it’s easy to remember that it means library. I didn’t need to rote memorize much to gain a lot of vocabulary in Spanish.
Not so with Chinese. There are few connections between Chinese words and English words. There are MANY connections between Chinese words and Chinese words, but until you have a relatively diverse vocabulary in Chinese, you can’t make those connections.
For me, the way to deal with this has been:
- Start on Duolingo. It’s definitely not going to get you a robust knowledge of Chinese, but finishing the Chinese course is a relatively fun way to get you jump start you with an initial vocabulary set.
- Accept the rote memorization. I do a lot of flashcarding vocabulary for Chinese, way more so than when I’ve learned other languages.
- Learn radicals. Knowing the radicals and how they’re pronounced increases your chances of guessing correctly what a character you don’t recognize is.