Stick with it! The fact that you can articulate the frustration so clearly is a positive sign, I think. You're describing the learning process -- and as the cliche goes, it's about the journey, not the destination. Worry less about how much or how fast you're learning Perl and focus on how well you're learning.

Some tactical ideas to help:

• Get familiar with the debugger and how to use it. If there is code you don't understand, use the debugger to step through it.
• Use tools like Data::Dump::Streamer to help you visualize data structures you don't understand.
• Write more code! Perl isn't an abstraction, it's a tool box. Even if you only know a little Perl, you should start using what you know. Solving real problems, no matter how small, is a positive reinforcement to what you're learning.