[RickOShay]

To add to Jesselt's explanation about Kanji, you may feel like it is a pain now, but after about 800 or so you will wonder how anybody could learn Japanese without it. It will become your "friend" and a learning tool to help you gain a large vocabulary more easily and be able guess the meanings of unknown words while reading.

Also about the knowing kanji through other kanji.. there are some instances like words with 心 (heart) in them as a radical, usually have something to do with emotions or feelings. Often times though kanji that have similar radicals will have similar pronunciations, like many kanji with the radical 青 will have せい as a possible reading.