Well said. Honstly, most things I've learned, I've learned from watching others. Especially when it comes to computers. So much of what I know how to do in UNIX came from asking a developer a question and then watching them navigate at the command prompt as they tried to find the answer to my question. From that I learned find, using Tab for filename completion, and even got into a bit of shell scripting.

That doesn't really answer your question of how do you ask what you need to do to do the task at hand, but I've found few things in life that are totally independent. The trick you learn today just becomes a part of your experience and will probably end up being useful in a way two years from now that you never thought of.

For the immediate learning, I just carry around lots of notepads. When trainers ask if I have any questions, I just say I'll get back to them in a week or so. Whenever I have a question, I write it in the book, and then after a week, I'll see what I can answer myself. What's left goes back to the person who offered to answer any questions.

Basically: watch and learn, live and learn. Hope this helps.