Whenever I have to write a word with 像 or 象 I have a hard time remembering which one to write.

Do you have a trick to remember what kinds of words to use which character?

Easy, one is a person standing next to an elephant, while the other is just an elephant. ;)

these two characters are actually quite interesting, as they can be interchangeable. However, the 像 is supposed to be used for the verb 'resemble' and in compound words like "好像". When looking on 文林 it seems that many words use either 像 or 象 with only a few that cannot be interchanged. I wold love to hear some tips as well.

Great question!

I've managed to skirt by so far by remembering that 好像 and 想像 are the only two words in my vocabulary (so far) that use 像 instead of 象. I'm sure I'll need to figure out a better way in the future since I occasionally mix the two up.

Links to MDBG (via bit.ly as the forum seems to mangle them otherwise).

Weather, elephants (and chess), symbols use 象

http://bit.ly/rIHH7T

Images use 像

http://bit.ly/sTe5jX

(incidentally looks like CEDICT has an error using 气像人员 rather than 气象人员).

I wouldn't have thought these can be interchanged in most of these cases based on the above, although don't have access to 文林.

Yeah, I've never really been able to figure out a system for that either. I put that in a category of nitpicky stuff I've decided not to care about. I figure if I'm reading it it'll never matter, if I'm typing it the computer will take care of it for me, and if I'm ever called upon to hand-write it, my dick-and-jane penmanship will reveal me for a foreigner long before anyone starts to care whether I used the right 象, and since it shouldn't affect comprehensibility, I'll get a pass.

I guess that's not really the appropriate reverence for learning, but there you have it. Whenever one of those comes up I just take a fifty-fifty shot and manually change it to correct if I guess wrong.

An explanation in Chinese:
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/11771680

I don't understand all of that though... but it seems like you can't use them interchangeably.

Something I noticed aside from what has already been mentioned is that 像 seems to refer to man made things such as images, statues and portraits.

While 象 seems to be used mainly for phenomenons (weather, illusions etc. etc) and appearances (as well as elephants).

The confusing thing is that 像 also can describe appearances in a way like 似乎 does it. Like.. "it seems like it would rain" would be something in the lines of 天好像下雨.

With reference to zdit, http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8ZdicB1ZdicA1.htm , on the tab 详细解释, item 9 said that in classical Chinese, 象 can mean “portrait”. So writing 肖象、图象 and 画象 are not entirely wrong. Further down in the verb section, item 1 said that 象 can also be used as 像 to convey the meaning of “resemble;be like;take after”. So it is also possible to write 好象.

But in modern Chinese, these 肖象、图象、画象 and 好象 have all been deprecated and one should only use 肖像、图像、画像 and 好像.

From Kawe's link: both characters were simplified to the same character 象 in 1964, then the meanings split to 象 and 像 again in 1986. 象 has elephant / symbol meaning, or imitate as a verb. 像 has the meaning image as a noun, to be similar as a verb, imitate as an adverb. The two characters shouldn't be mixed up with each other in modern Chinese.