but learning any language takes most of all a lot of practice, and the sort of monomaniacal immersion thing i do speeds that up.

Yeah. I remember once saying in frustration (while surrounded by linguistics polyglots), "I wish I could just learn to speak a language without having to get a crush on it and take it to bed!" There are people out there who can acquire the ability to communicate in Turkish, for instance, without turning themselves into fanatic Turkophiles for years.