At what point did you start having trouble learning new characters? What did you do?

I don't think I ever didn't have trouble learning new characters!  Hats off to you my friend for making it to 1500 before the trouble kicked in!  Having said that, I know exactly what you mean. I'm at about the 1000 mark and there are plenty of characters which I think i recognise, only to be bamboozled because it was one tiny extra stroke on the radical...Just keep at it and use those SRS flashcards, they've been a godsend.

I guess it is up to us on our desired level of proficiency . As for me , I might be able to type the character, but might not be able to pronounce the character with the proper tones...My desire is to able to say/write what is on my mind and understand people's written/spoken words.

I think it only becomes easier to learn as you acumulate more - You notice more new patterns for both meaning and sound, and every new charecter is going to have enough similarity to already learned ones that you can usually associate it to some group of simiarly pronounced charecters that tell you its sound.  When I encounter a new charecter, I'm usually 80% to guess its sound and tone right, and even if wrong I'm usually only off slightly (ie I knew 衢, so when I ran into 瞿 the other day my mind put 2 and 2 together and knew it was going to be qu2.  Some older dictionaries also say it has a second pronounciation of ju4, but I got the main one ;) )

The exception might be if you were learning charecters in a vague way, by sort of memorizing a blurry sense of their structure - in that case, you are going to start to get similar looking charecters and have trouble.  But the problem lies in your method, and it was present from the begining - only the problems took awhile to show up.  The best solution is to go back and learn charecters from their structure - carefully note what radicals are present, form an account in your mind of how particular elements contribute sound and meaning.  You might try getting the book - Reading and Writing Chinese by William McNaughton - it has a few errors, but very good nonethless. And its organization is great, as it presents a bunch of charecters with similar pronounciation component in a row, helping you to distinguish between similar looking charecters.  It also has great explanations of how to analyze charecters, that will get you going in that direction.

One other note - it is a HUGE mistake to view flashcards, or any kind of formal review, as the way you maintain your knowledge of the charecters you already know.  It works fine when there are a couple hundred, but later the problem is it takes too long.  Consider the amount of time it takes to review a single charecter with a flashcard or reading it in a book, 5-10 seconds maybe?  Ok, now if you are reading something, how many charecters would you have read in the same period of time?  I'd say you if you are familar with the charecters and reading something on your level, you are probably getting several charecters per second, even reading at a slow rate.  And each time you read a charecter, that is reviewing it.  The speed difference is because it is so much smoother and more natural to read - rather than looking at charecter, stopping to ask yourself what its pronounciation and meaning is, coming up with an english translation, confirming against answer, flipping to next...Sure, in reading you review the common charecters alot, but if you are picking good reading material for your level you are also hitting the less common ones often enough.  And you are also training your general understanding of the language, and improving your skills in grammer, word usage, etc.

When you have very few charecters, formal study, flashcards are your only options - at 1500, its time for your review to switch to reading simple stories.  Find stuff aimed at very small children for now, and slowly increase from there.  Leave formal study or cards for learning new charecters, and turn review over to natural reading.

Tim

I would second what Tim said re: study methods.  My old method was to practice new characters daily, then write all the characters I knew out every Sunday.  This worked well enough at the beginning, but after 1,500 characters you wind up spending your entire weekend writing characters... time better spent learning usage and grammar.  

Regarding your original comment, my biggest problem isn't learning new characters; it's remembering old ones; especially how to write them.

I agree, writing from a blank page is the absolute hardest thing to do.  Seeing the characters written down brings back memory alot easier.

I also agree with what you are saying regarding radicals and character formulation - when I see a new character I try and figure out if it has a specific "sound radical", but even if I can identify that you can't be sure that is how it sounds.

I used to do the review flashcards method but it is tiring.  I will try to spend more time reading materials.

Now I haven't reached 1500 yet, (although I don't know exactly how many I have so far), but I had problems at the beginning. As I began to understand patterns, I found that the learning seemed to go smoother. I may end up with the same problem as you when I reach that point. I don't know.

oh and flashcards do help.

I agree that paying attention to the radicals of the characters is important as one learns more and more of them.  I recently posted that I found there are 2000 characters in the entire set of Intermediate (and Elementary) lessons.

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/11787

A number of people here have posted that they are at the 1,500, or 2,500 etc characters point, and I have a couple of questions: how do you know how many characters you know? Second question: what does it mean to 'know a character'? 

I assume that you are working to a textbook (or ChinesePod level) and when you have completed the textbook or completed a certain number of CP lessons you 'know' how many characters you know? Perhaps some people are working towards or have completed their HSK, and this generates an objective count of characters? 

I guess my own definition of 'knowing' a character is if someone says a word to me, I can recognise what was said and write that word accurately, adding pinyin with tones. 

But you might also see something written in the street and be able to read and understand every word - at another (much lower) level this is 'knowing' the character. Chinese being Chinese I may be able to achieve an accurate understanding of a passage of writing without actually 'knowing' some characters - I may recognise some without knowing either pronunciation or meaning, I may know pronunciation but not meaning, or I may confront an entirely new chaaracter. 

So READING is a lower level of knowing than WRITING.

Just a few 'levels of 'knowing' (from low level knowing to high level knnowing):

- copying a character (with or without understanding it or knowing how to say it or use it)

- reading a character (being able to pronounce it but not understand it)

- reading a character (being able to pronounce it and understand it but not necessarily how to use it in a sentence)

- reading a character (being able to use it properly in a sentence)

- writing a character after hearing it said

- writing a character after hearing it said, and understanding what it means in context

I agree with Bodawei - I think stating how many characters you 'know' is very subjective depending on what criteria you are using. For example if it was writing the character after hearing it I probably wouldn't be able to write more than 50 but if it was reading, pronouncing and understanding a character it would be more like 1000!

you make good points about degrees of competency (or knowing) and for most of us, a character count is just a rough guess, in my case, the highest number card from my flashcard deck ;) but what most people are trying to do is measure progress. Am I getting closer to my goals? Can I read a newspaper? Am I fluent (流利)? So in many ways, a character count is meaningless, but perhaps it does provide an easy yardstick for us beginners.  Until I'm prepared to submit to a standard, repeatable measurement, (HSK anyone?) then counting cards can give a feeling of accomplishment and motivation.  

Part of this hit on an issue for me - where you you get level-appropriate reading material? I'm probably 300-500 characters and flash cards are getting tedious. But I can't find any books (in USA) written for the 8 to 10 year olds. Any suggestions? Anyone want to start a "ZhongWenPaperBackSwap.com"?