Indeed, I meant the latter interpretation.
Yes, that's a very good example! That's exactly how I learned French - and I learned much quicker than, say, the usual class curriculum starting with grammar. Turns out, if my goal was to go to France and speak to people there in French, the grammar wasn't necessary to get the point across (in most cases).
with compounding, optimise for things you can keep doing for a long time. The earlier and longer you can do something, the more you will gain from the force of compounding.
I was hinting at this, but didn't say it. Thanks for making it explicit.
This was floated at the event: https://tinyletter.com/acxlondon