>After having learned English, Russian and Hungarian, I think that knowing the theory is just the RTFM - sooner or later you got to do that, else you won't know why doesn't your code work :).
I know that I've learned more about English grammar by studying French, Latin, and German, then I ever did in taking any English classes < s > When in your own first-language, who cares what the constructs are if you can speak, read, and write it decently. But in other languages, you *must* learn the constructs well to understand how to use it (and be understood, anyway)...My book on German notes that it's fairly easy to accidently insult a German if you are not quite careful :)
The Anonymous Bureaucrat,
and frankly, quite content not to be
a member of either major US political party.