[tobr]

The comparison with learning English is spot on. The way you learn your native language is by simply growing up in a context where you are forced to try to use the sounds of the language to make yourself understood. You start with the intuition; writing, spelling, and word classes come much, much later, when you’re really an expert on the language already.

For some reason when people learn a foreign language they tend to start with the written language, and actually holding a conversation or understanding a native speaker is often a less prominent part of learning. This, to me, is a lot like thinking that learning music starts with reading a score and studying up on music theory, when you actually already have an intuitive understanding of music because you’ve listened to it all your life, and should probably focus on building similar intuition for expressing yourself with an instrument.