"One Month": My Polish Tutor Weighs In

I may be becoming a language bore, but too bad. I spent the day writing about what the media thought of Hellgate and then about the epistolary correspondence of various bishops, so now I want to write about Polish. I could write about the fact that the actor playing TV-Jughead was seen canoodling with the actor playing TV-Betty in Paris, but I'm above such an inordinate desire to discuss  the private lives of thespians.

Before adding to the headaches of the Secretariat for Communications of the Holy See, I went to my favourite hipster cafe to chat with my Polish tutor and eat avocado toast. There was a bearded chap at the table next to us, writing in a notebook. At the table next to him there was another bearded chap. Really, it was all very hipster, and I hope we did not disturb the atmosphere of literary endeavour with our Polish chatter. I am inclined to think not, for the Polish language is very hipster in itself, if the speaker is not actually Polish and is wearing cat's-eye frames. 

I complained to my tutor at some length about the stupidity of Kobieta Sukcesu and my inability to understand its dialogue, thanks to the subtitles vying for my brain's attention and the psychological impossibility of becoming fluent in Polish in a non-Polish environment. 

My Polish tutor (or MPT as she will now be named) agreed that it is impossible to become fluent in Polish in a non-Polish environment but that linguistically gifted individuals do not need to spend a whole year in a total immersion context. For example, I would need only a month. 

I looked at MPT with myopic eyes of doubt. Nobody has ever suggested that your humble correspondent is linguistically gifted in anything but English, and I am not ready to return to the myth of giftedness anyway. Years of pondering the topic have led me to believe that adult language-learning is all a matter of rewiring one's brain and retraining one's tongue through years of toil. 

The MPT pointed out that she is graduate of linguistic science--at least, I think that's what she said--and therefore knew what she was talking about.  It occurs to me know that she also tutors other people in Polish, and I am her star pupil, so she probably does know what she is talking about. 

So that was rather cheering, even though I cannot imagine spending an entire month in Poland with--or even without--B.A. At least, no month soon, and I would have to be nestled in the bosom of a Polish family because I have learned that lodging in a Polish rectory is a recipe for loneliness and eye infections.