The way I learn kanji is a two step process:

1. flashcards

2. learn the meaning of radicals and make up some story that will help me remember how to write it

Here are some fun ones based on the radicals:

* 怒る「おこる」 is the intransitive verb meaning ‘to get angry’

the kanji is made of three radicals:
女 「おんな is ‘woman/female’
又「また」 is ‘again/still’

心 「こころ」 is the ‘heart/mind’

so basically, when I learned this, it was a female’s spirit still angry

* 必死な「ひっしな」 is an adjective/noun that means ‘frantic; desperate’

the meanings of the two kanji here are:
必ず「かならず」 is commonly used as an adverb, meaning ‘always; without exception’
死ぬ「しぬ」 is the verb, ‘to die’
so to do something frantically/desperately, it will always, without exception, lead to death

* 美しい「うつくしい」 is an adjective meaning beautiful

this character is made of two radicals:
羊「ひつじ」 is ‘sheep’
大「だい」 means ‘big/great’
so when you say someone is beautiful, that someone is a great sheep

* 悲しい「かなしい」is ‘sad/sorrowful’

the kanji can be broken down into two parts:
非 is the top radical, meaning ‘wrong’
心 as mentioned earlier, is ‘heart/mind’
to be sad is wrong for the heart. Positive thinking here!

* 薬「くすり」 is medicine

yet, the funny part here is the top radical
楽しい「たのしい」 means ‘fun; enjoyable’ which is the bottom portion of this kanji
艹 is the top radical that means ‘grass’
so medicine is the enjoyable grass…all of a sudden, I kinda miss living in Colorado

* the next two words use the same radicals but in different positions

忘れる「わすれる」 the verb ‘to forget’

忙しい「いそがしい」 the adjective ‘busy’
忄 for ‘busy’ is a differently formatted 心 which is used in ‘to forget’
亡い「ない」means ‘dead’
so to forget or to be busy is having no mind/heart
there are so many more fun kanji/chinese characters, but i’ll stop here for now.

It has been difficult but a lot fun learning Japanese and Chinese. I have been paying more attention to the radicals/components of the characters. The Chinese writing system is not without phonetics; one portion contains some meaning of the word while another portion would provide the phonics/correct pronunciation of the character. Many of the radicals are written differently in Mandarin (vs kanji) since the start of using simplified Chinese.

here is a link for the radical meanings as well as the current simplified Chinese writing of the radicals

http://www.archchinese.com/arch_chinese_radicals.html

another great site is: http://jisho.org/ if you click on the kanji details, it will give you the meaning for each character and you can also search kanji by the number of radical strokes