Language Learning Frustration

Language learning frustration!  The emotion was a new one for me.  I generally feel motivated, excited, proud of myself when I study languages, but a recent session of Irish Gaelic on Duolingo filled me negative emotions.  I just couldn't get things right to move that Duolingo progress bar forward and earn points.

I could feel myself becoming more and more confused and finally, yes!  I clicked the X and gave up. You may have experienced similar negative emotions while trying to acquire another language. Is there a way to avoid this unpleasantness in the future?

Many schools of thought exist about the optimum way of acquiring another language.  My early experience with Spanish and French study was definitely old school - based on a grammar translation approach.  As a consequence, I can probably still easily pass a grammar test in either language. However, since I would like to be able to use the languages I study for practical purposes,  I have long since moved on to the Communicative Approach to language acquisition.

The goal of the umbrella-like Communicative Approach is exactly what the title implies -learners use the language studied for communicative purposes - listening, speaking, reading and writing. The role of grammar study in the Communicative Approach is less well defined, but most proponents relegate explicit grammar study to a supportive role, in varying degrees.

When I discovered that Duolingo, my favorite online language learning program, offered Irish Gaelic,

I made the decision to try out the Communicative Approach in its perhaps most radical form - no grammar study.  Although Duolingo offers grammar explanations in the form of Tips and Notes as part of its program. I decided to forego them and jump right into the language exercises, figuring out structures from the raw language data.

That was about a year ago now, and I have done fairly well.  A list of the Irish grammar points  I have hypothesized and tested includes sentence word order, relative position of nouns and adjectives, definite and indefinite markers for nouns, plural forms, and verb endings, all without resorting to reading grammar explanations.  Exercises labeled as "eclipsis" and "lenition" are not as clear, but I can make my way through them.

And then one morning recently, I attempted to do an Irish exercise that appeared to be about what people have, want or prefer, but Irish was not using verbs to express those meanings, but prepositions!  And the subjects of the verbs were pronouns used as objects of those prepositions. Dear me!  I was really confused, an emotion that quickly escalated to anger and frustration.

I realize that in the giant scheme of things, not being able to quickly make sense of an Irish grammar point is of minimal importance, but I still consider it a personal defeat.  Recently I have found myself attempting only the easier review features of Irish so that I can zip right through and earn points for the day.

It is decision time.    Do I go back to the difficult grammar point on my own and slog my way through it, or do I give up and let Duolingo or some other source teach me the grammar point before I attempt the exercise again?

The bigger question is, can a communicative approach to language study ban explicit grammar study completely?

What do you think?