What drew my attention here is "learning words and phrases" in a sort of derogatory manner. I'm not sure how you meant it to sound, but from my experience, learning words and phrases is kind of the bulk and core of language study. I mean, in any case there's more different words than rules that govern their use, not to mention that in any language new words are always getting created or borrowed (which, I guess, from this point of view, makes this a futile task, but such is life... or as people who don't know French say, "c'est la vie").