You might remember the meaning of the character 凌 with this easy mnemonic:
I saw a fish soar up from the icy (冫) water and land in the earth (土). That was eight (八) minutes ago, so we have to go (夂) save it! Or we can go slowly (夊) if we plan on eating it anyway.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.