"There's this feature X in my target language... it makes no sense to me, so I will wait for it to magically enter my memory... Not tackling it yet!"
I've seen this mindset repeated over and over by people learning Finnish, especially when it comes to consonant gradation. I myself am a native speaker of Finnish (to the surprise of many, apparently), and most of the languages I had previously studied had nothing similar (or as difficult or "foreign" to understand), so I couldn't really say anything about it.
However, in uni, I started learning North Sámi. It also has gradation, just on a larger level and with different consonants in a different way. This allowed me to form an opinion:
If you don't get it, don't get it. Just memorize it well enough so you know how to apply it and when.
Do not wait or delay learning an important part of the language just because you are scared or confused. Do it scared and confused. If you want to learn the language, learn the language! It's that simple. You can try to start to understand the mechanics after spending 4 hours each night drilling practice questions.
I would naturally apply this to every language one wants to learn, but as I am a blog about Finnish, I'll say; if you do not understand gradation yet, pick your book up! Practice!
