Learning a language

How do small children learn their mother tongue? They can use no dictionaries, no handbooks, noone can explain them, simply because they don’t know any language yet. They learn by listening and imitating.

That’s the approach I decided to use too. I’ve been reading Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (thanks to Drc for lending me) and I haven’t used a dictionary although there are plenty of words I don’t understand. When I get to such a word, I try to guess its meaning, on the next occurence, it gets more accurate, when I see the word ten times in different sentences I usually understand pretty well what it means. I think this approach is generally slower than using a dictionary, but it offers much deeper understanding. Although, I have to admit, there are some dictionaries, that are pretty good.

As my random thoughts go, I usually skip between various things when writing a post:
I find extensive use of the word “cry” meaning “shout” quite funny. I was taught that crying is the process of making tears, so, when I read “blah blah blah, cried Gandalf”, it always confuses me. Is it used like that in contemporary english?