[delacroix01]

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If your first language is outside the Eastern Asian language system, I think it's best to just pick up new words whenever you read something and memorize them eventually, rather than trying to learn radicals or separate kanji at a time. I have never tried to learn radicals so far, and my vocabulary is still being built at a pace that I feel comfortable. The method of learning separate kanji does work for me, though. My first language has many words originated from Chinese, rendering me possible of understanding certain new words (not all of them, of course) just by remembering the kanji forming those words. I believe Chinese and Korean people have even greater advantage since their languages are closer to Japanese, not just the similarity in word-sounding.