I'd like to offer you some good methods for remembering Chinese words
1. A character sometimes has the same meaning to its related words
for example, 兔（tu, rabbit) is equlvalent to "兔子” 海(hai, sea) is equlvalent to "大海“
remember these wirds together when you look up your dictionary next time.
2. In most of the time, a character is at least related to its relative words.
e.g. we have a 兔 now, we can predicte that “兔腿（tu tui, rabbit's leg) 兔年（year of rabbit) 玉兔（this is a character of chinese myth)
3. It's a good method to relate a character with the other one in a word.
e.g. 海域 can be divided into 海（sea) and 域 (region) so we know 海域 means region of sea
in 海岸 , we have 海（sea) and 岸（shore) so we know 海岸 means "seashore"
if you find two characters in a word have the same meaning, so that "the same meaning" is just the word's meaning
e.g. in 哭泣 we have 哭( cry) and 泣（ also means cry) so we know that 哭泣 just means cry
You can use these methods for dealing a lot of words. But it's might not useful for some words with speical meaning
