I am coming to realise that learning Polish is not the satisfying linear process I had hoped for. Vocab comes and goes, submerging itself when needed and then reappearing at will like an unpredictable hippopotamus. I grope for words that I knew 24 hours ago: the intervention of Anglophone jabber has loosened my tentative ability to talk about tightening a bolt. I am able, by virtue of endless repetition, to ask someone if they have seen Warsaw by the light of the moon, but the words for laundry or lock regularly evade me. Not so automatic baggage locker (bezobslugowa przechowalnia bagazu), which has lodged deep in my left hemispheric cortex despite the very remote likelihood that it will ever be any use.



I like the term language acquisition for describing this process. Acquisition is less passive than learning, more of a struggle. It describes the strong sense of ownership for words gained and also the almost physical sensation of clutching after expression. Language acquired is mental ground ceded and finally reconquered; language fought for, language possessed, language deserved.