Hello, I've recently started self study for Kanji and I was wondering if studying the radicals first would help me more. If so, where would be the best place to go to learn about it? Or is it something that I would have to memorize with flashcards?
Hmm...I'm personally not a huge fan of the radicals; they *often* do show some relation to the kanji in question's meaning, but ..hmm.
The renshuu.org site does offer radical/bushu reviews in the advanced quizzes section for kanji quizzes. It'll let you quiz on radical names and the radicals present in kanji, but not the meaning of radicals.
Personally, I don't think it's necessary until you've been studying Japanese for a few years, or you want a *really* fundamental grounding in kanji.
The only time I've ever seen radicals actually used in real life was when 1) they are used to lookup an unfamiliar kanji, and 2) they are used to describe a kanji to someone (although this is probably only when explaining a kanji to someone who is studying the language).
