@Gaojian85,

I'm actually curious as to which methods you're referring to and which ones that you've tried in the past.

The method I outlined is the one that Chinese students use from primary school. The first thing they learn is Pinyin, the second is 偏旁部首. The radicals are the absolute foundation of learning to read and write Chinese characters. Without a rock-solid foundation in the radicals, then, reading and writing will be difficult if not impossible task later on and a piecemeal at best.

Stroke order is important with regards to the balance and beauty of the character, however not so imperative for the character to be readable. Besides, if blueblade3000 makes the decision to follow my advice and learn to read and write the radicals, then information on proper stroke order will naturally collocate with it. He'll learn the two together.

What I wanted to stress was the IMPORTANCE of making the commitment to learn the radicals and reading and writing. I've seen to many students of this language that either have no interest in learning to read and write or don't deem it important enough to spend the time learning.

Both mentalities do the learners a terrible disservice.

Once you learn to read and write, then the oral, auditory and semantic aspects of the language become MUCH easier and naturally progress in concert with the other aspects of the language.

Reading a Chinese article can do absolute wonders for better understanding spoken Chinese and vocabulary memorization and can shave years of painstaking effort from the journey to fluency.

This is why I advised blueblade3000 to put in the little extra effort at the beginning because it will pay big dividends later on.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

Happy studying,

小虎