i'm in Shanghai. Welcome. need to prepare for the wet spring of Shanghai.

if your aim is to recognize more than 1500 Chinese characters, my suggestion is that you should find a teacher to teach you. Or at least find a book about Chinese characters. Just like English's morphemes, different character parts stand for different meanings or pronounciations. if you know some, that will be really helpful. for example. the character 休 means " have a rest" the left part means "people" and the right part means " tree or wood" , so you can remember this character by thinking a person leans against a wood when he is having a rest. Chinese characters are derived from pictures, some characters or some parts are just like the simpified structure of things. for example, 田 means field in chinese. it's just like the shape of Chinese corp field. some Chinese characters part can also tell you how to pronounce it. for example, 丁，盯，钉，订，叮，町they are almost of the same pronounciation. here 丁is the part they are in common and this is the part that take charge of the pronouciation. and the left part usually take charge of the meaning, so 目means eye, 盯means staring. 钅means metal, so 钉means nail. 讠means writing, so 订means revising. 口means month, so 叮means talking or biting. 田means field, so 町 means a place. When you learn that you'll find Chinese characters are really interesting, at least to me. at one thing i think is quite important when you try to remember Chinese charater is that you should imagine!