When radicals make words does Chinese convey two layers of meaning all the time? I can recognize and translate the 215 radicals. Now, I'm told radicals combine with each other and other characters to make words, and that some radicals denote sound for pronunciation of the word. And that identifying the radical(s) inside the words won't always helps you decode its meaning; it just helps you find the stroke category in a dictionary or something.

So is mandarin always conveying two meanings (or levels of meaning) at once-- from the radicals and also from the new words that the radicals make when joined? Does this notion disappear once you gain fluency? Do you automatically ignore the radicals' individual meanings like they just don't exist? And why is mandarin like this, etymologically speaking?
You can consider radicals as affix and suffix, and when you see a common english word, most time you will not consider what's the affix and suffix means, because you know the word meaning, only when you consider on the word's source, you will discuss with the affix and suffix, that's same to Chinese. And, when you encounter a word that you don't familiar or recognize, you may guess the meaning by affix and suffix, but you also know, your guess may be wrong if you don't find a real explanation in dictionaries. Same to Chinese, we may guess the meaning and pronoucation of an unfamiliar char by radicals or by itself, but that's may not be correct.