[jesselt]

Originally Posted by aphextwin

Thanks a lot guys, I read all the advice and though I still don't quite understand kanji, I feel like I'm on the verge of an "ahha" moment so I'll see where I am in a week or two.

Yuriyuri, in your example...
少ない　（すく・ない）
少し　（すこ・し）
... you said that if you came across the second of these in a newspaper or wherever, you might look it up because it's a new word and with new words, the reading of the kanji might change, right? But then, what's even the point of kanji, because if every time you see a new word with the same kanji character there's a chance the obscured non-hiragana part might have changed and you need to look it up, that seems really counterproductive and like a bad way to organize a language. Why not just use hiragana always if the very root kanji that's supposed to simplify things changes from word to word? I understand the language just is how it is, so I should get used to it, but I guess I'm not seeing the convenience of kanji.

Long strings of Hiragana are very hard to read. Itwouldbeliketryingtoreadenglishwithoutanyspacesbutevenworse.
Kanji speeds up reading because entire ideas are represented in Kanji and not just phonetic sounds. Fluent speakers might have to look up Kanji every once in a while when reading books or something, but fluent English speakers have to look up words they don't know too. Not too different.

Also, I've heard people say how after you get familiar with kanji, sometimes you'll come across a new one and kinda know already what it's about or might mean. Could someone tell me a bit about how you infer that, is it just by the "primitives" or "radicals" used?

Well, when you recognize certain Kanji in Kanji compounds you could have a vague idea of what the word is about (sort of...) Like 外国語学部
外国 is foreign country
語 is language
学 is school
部 is department
外国語学部 is Foreign language department.

Not that easy for most compounds however. Figuring out what a Kanji means is more difficult. 海　漢　温　 all have the radical for "Water" in them, but only some have anything to do with water at all.

The last part is directed at Kyle, so I'll let him answer. My advice would be to not turn Kanji off though.