And, yes, I guess you've expressed the language learning process for native speakers a little better than I did...
I would say it was probably more like that when I was a child learning English...(within the context of what is required to learn English, of course...). But it gets forgotten pretty fast...and for some reason I don't recall the process of learning English grammar in school as being particularly difficult or complicated...Yet, somehow when it came to learning French, it seemed much more complicated. They seemed to throw lots of complicated stuff at us... I'm thinking more and more...partly from what I hear in this forum and from what I've read elsewhere that perhaps the process by which adults are taught languages is a bit over-structured. Probably because of traditional views regarding the education process. What I do now with French is watch TV (enough French channels in Canada, from both Quebec and France, that there is a fair bit of variety) and read occasionally... Seems to work...
I think for most of us the language learning process seems to rely on memory and regular use...Though maybe the "intellectual approach" works too... For example, Cardinal Mezzofanti:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/ ... index.html
he apparently was fluent in 38 languages and never left Italy!!!...
