What is the best way to memorize chinese characters and remember their meanings?

I've been taking Chinese lessons for nearly 8 years now and Spanish for half a year, yet I know more Spanish than Chinese. Minus the fact that Spanish is very similar to English, the Chinese language has tones and over 500000 characters. So, if you're an English speaker, Chinese will most likely come hard on you, like it did on me.

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Here's the problem: there is really no way to memorize Chinese characters and their meaning. Many characters look alike and sound alike but mean two different things. However, based on my background knowledge, I was told that the characters look somewhat like their meanings.

Take 日 (sun), 月 (moon), 山 (mountain), 水 (water), 雨 (rain), and 木 (wood) for example. They all look like their meanings, which is convenient.

However, not all characters are like this, so you just have to memorize them and use them often. You can do this:
1. Speaking Chinese as often as you can
2. Watch Chinese shows with English subtitles 

Permafrost is a thick layer of soil frozen throughout the year. two words to create permafrost would be permanent ice.

Ibelieve the rising demand for workers on the huge plantations