/jp/ - Otaku Culture

i may be retarded but what's the deal with radicals? i've been trying to find info on them since i'm a newfag and want to start from there after hiragana and katakana but i don't really understand them wrt variant forms. from what i've seen so far some use suffixes relative to their position like hen/ben, ri/kuri/tsukuri, ashi, kanmuri/ganmuri, nyou, tare/dare, kamae/gamae, and kashira/gashira but a lot don't and use wacky shit like 心's readings being kokoro/shitagokoro/risshinben. what's the difference?

sorry if this info is easy to find, i couldn't find it anywhere.