Understanding not-understanding

Something just occurred to me as I was studying Quine’s "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". I’ll often make sense of things without understanding any of the terms involved; I mean to say that my mind seems to inherently interpret things on a structural or formal level, rather than in a practical, “this and this,” sort of way. Ironically, I’ll often make sense of things I don’t get at all. For example I love visiting physics sights and just reading the jargon: I’ll understand how they got from their premises to their conclusion, and even have a vague idea of what’s being said, but only as a whole; if you asked me to explain one part, I couldn’t. In my mind everything has always been relational -- it’s no wonder I take such a liking to structuralism and post-structuralism. I suppose if I had to attribute this to something, it’s probably the years I spent in French emersion without ever bothering to try and adequately learn French. There were countless words I didn’t understand, but as long as I could grasp the operands, things “made sense.” Meh; maybe everyone’s mind works like this?