Radicals ( Bushu | 部首 ) are a way of breaking down Kanji (which the more I learn the more I seem to understand it as Elvish with extra steps, picture edition) into components which make them a little easier to remember. If you know a little bit about the history of it, it will start to make more sense as to why there's so much to remember surrounding Kanji and you can't just immediately get started as I wanted to do, if you are self-taught.
Kanji overall is used for nouns, main parts of verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
鼠-red (2009, PD/GNU/CC3.0) Tauwasser
Magana
Magana ( True Kana script | 真仮名 ) is the language that was used to describe the language Japanese people were using between 'false kana' and 'true kana' which was used around the time Japanese Kana was becoming a thing distinctive from Chinese language scripts which were used in during the Asuka period (538-710 CE).
These were the times were most people couldn't read or write in Japan (globally as well really) but also when Chinese was still the main form of written communication. Chinese was the language used by the elites to maintain control over their domains and was seen as something people with money did and could do.
The regular people living in the Japanese islands of Honshu mostly spoke Japanese as we know it today. But they had no writing system until Manyogana ( Scripts from the Manyogana text ) and Sogana ( Squiggly scripts ) came along (c.750-800 CE). Sogana and other vernacular (spoken) languages were made by women and clerics.
Modern Hiragana therefore became a thing and was written and used by elites in places like Kyoto (c.850-950 CE) which at the time was the capital of the Emperor of Japan. Katakana was originally used by monks to write texts as it was easier to do large amounts of writing with the blocky forms of Katakana. It is most likely they were also influenced around this time due to the inclusion of Buddhism, which originated along the border between Nepal and India. This gave us our first sets of scripts which allowed the Japanese language to be written as it was spoken in Japan instead of just being 'Chinese letters: Islands edition'.
China Tangent
These varieties include fun-interesting-bewildering-annoying-killme things like these;
Onyomi ( Sound reading | 音読み)
Kunyomi ( Precept/Local Reading | 訓読み )
Pictographs ( Shoukeimoji | 象形文字 ）
Ideographs ( Shijimoji | 指示文字 )
Keiseimoji ( Semasio-phonetic-patterns | 形成文字 )
Kaiimoji ( Compound Ideographs | 家事文字 )
Tenchuu moji ( Meaning-borrowing signs | 典中文字 )
Kasha moji ( Rebus signs | かしゃ文字）
All of these really fun looking words are things you are probably gonna come across at some point so maybe bookmark the page I guess. Each of these last 6 are what's known as the Rokusho ( six method writing styles | 六書 ) and are used by people translating Old Chinese into Old Japanese. At the the time of the Han Dynasty (220 BCE - 200ish CE) these were the 4 writing styles for scribes, but nowadays are the six because Elvish with pictures.
They transfer the meaning of the borrowed words and scripts (signs really) into things that people writing and speaking Japanese from 650-1000 CE would have recognised.
Also adopted were the 8 principles of Yong which gives you the stroke order used in modern Kanji so the more you know ---*.
Onyomi, which is the original sounds from Chinese for the Kanji were adopted at different times. These are the go sound, kan sound and tou sounds. Go comes from the Wu region of China (Yangtze river of the Southern and Northern Dynasties; 420-589 CE), Kan comes from the North West of modern China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and the tou from the Sou Dynasty (1100-1200's CE).
Kangxi Dictionary
All modern Kanji originate from the Kangxi Dictionary (1716), a Dictionary which was formed of the Chinese Han characters and from which 214 Kanji shapes derive from the overall usage of these into Japan at different times from China and local variation in different dialects and texts (if you are going down the Old Japanese route, see above).
There are then series of Bushu which are formatted according to these above principles laid out by previous Japanese writers. They follow these patterns:
Hen - Left hand side
Tsukuri - Right hand side
Kanmuri - Top
Ashi - Bottom
Kamae - Enclosure Bushu
Tane - Hanging Bushu
Nyou - Wrapping Bushuu
These are some of the things you will need to begin understanding Japanese properly when you are consulting all of the confusing multifacted texts which are there in Japanese-anything dicitionaries courtesy of English-Japanese linguistics.
TLDR/Conclusion
Stand alone Kanji uses the Kunyomi or Japanese reading.
Compound Kanji uses the Onyomi or Chinese reading.
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