English grammar (my native language) has always been a mystery to me. Any time I hear about participles or present perfect or infinitives or passive voice etc… my eyes glaze over and I have no idea what any of it means. In school I failed those units.
Learning a new language from grammar principles wouldn’t be a very effective path for me…
It's funny, but I always found English grammar (also my native language) to be completely pointless, but I find myself really enjoying learning about Latin grammar, and as a result marveling about how weird English is. It's fascinating that one subsystem in our brain can completely understand our native language's grammar, and yet another part finds it unfathomable.
In high school French class, I had the same problems with grammar in that language.
For example, to teach plus-que-parfait my teacher used English language analogies and they were all useless for me. Again, I failed that part of the course but my grades were high enough to pass without it.
Learning a new language from grammar principles wouldn’t be a very effective path for me…