This is a great approach -- don't just learn words (and string them together in sequences taken from your native language... not likely to be right!); learn com

This is a great approach -- don't just learn words (and string them together in sequences taken from your native language... not likely to be right!); learn common chunks that you can re-use everywhere. There are still verb tenses that I haven't properly learned in French, but I use them because I learned some chunks that use them. I'm not at ease with using the tenses involved in "I should have ___ but I ___" -- but I know the chunks for that particular phrase without thinking about it (e.g., J'aurais dû lui dire mais j'avais complètement oublié) -- that's technically conditional past then pluperfect.. which I had to look up just now; I don't really know them! There are oddities with imperative form that I only really know through chunks -- but "don't be afraid" (n'aies pas peur) is easy even though it's irregular, just because I know that one. And now they're less alien-feeling, so -- being comfortable with the chunked versions -- I now have mental hooks that let me recognize similar conjugations used on other verbs when I run into them.