Radicals important?

[Soloistic]

I have just started teaching myself kanji and have been slowly but most assuringly moving through the first 80. One of my books, as well as a few places here and there, mention radicals often and although it doesn't really explain what they are, it does tell me it would be "helpful" to learn them. There is a list of the 214 traditional radicals in a book I have.

So basically I was wondering if someone could give me a good description of what they are (my books don't really explain it) and if it is important to memorize them.

[Ghik]

From what I know, radicals are some special kanji that are some kind of base characters for more complex kanji. Also, radicals are usually parts of another kanji, from what I deduct that probably it would be very helpful to learn stroke order of radicals.

Is that right? (I'm just a beginner.)

[nice gaijin]

Radicals make up kanji. They sometimes serve as clues to what the character means, or how to read it. Don't spend all your time on them, but they're good to know. As you study kanji, you'll recognize that radicals are everywhere.

[Shiroi na Tenshi]

Either radicals are a right wing left wing sect of political activists in Nippon or radicals are indeed base characters. WHen it comes to Kanji, ti is almost ritualistic to learn the radicals first because when you study the 213 radicals it is almost a pattern to tell the pronunciation of characters and their purposes just by the raadical used in the phrases.

[yukio_michael]

Radicals, unlike in the english language are POSTpoisitions, unlike prepositions, meaning that they modify the word or phrase BEFORE them.

Especially in reading real Japanese, with Kanji, they are invaluable in breaking up phrases into discernible parts. There are many, but you only need to concern yourself with a few when first learning Japanese: wa, ga, o, de, ni, ka, e, ...and the like. Others come with time.

[nice gaijin]

yukio... you're talking about particles. Radicals are parts of kanji.