[cJ0th]

> What method did you use to initially learn the characters?

We were introduced to the characters in class and subsequently learned how to write them. So after being introduced to a character I repeated it on paper for a couple of lines. I repeated this exercise from time to time. I also read the stories of the text book out loud and listened to the recording of the texts. But as I've pointed out in my other post, you have to have context to really learn a language. Just the fact that I used several types of learning doesn't mean that they weren't kind of shallow.

The technique you've delineated above certainly sounds like a better approach.