Le Baron wrote:'Tutor' for me means any person or source able to shed light upon obscurity and ease the burden of learning.
I highly doubt, though, that this was the definition used by
s_allard in the quote
anitarrc was responding to:
In all these cases, the help of a native tutor is indispensable.
You don't have to hire native tutors, but you can certainly put google and linguistic references to good use.
Le Baron wrote:Isn't it true that TL learners very often say: 'I can understand the news, some documentaries, TV shows even speeches or formal debates, and read books, but when the natives start talking among themselves it's often gibberish to me!'?
And where does this off-hand stats come from? 'often say', 'often gibberish'. Sure, TV is TV, and is not a full replacement of the actual everyday familiar speech, but it's not that far-off either. If you can watch TV and understand 99% of everything said, I'm pretty sure that you will not have too much difficulty adjusting yourself to the native speech of people around you once you're in the country. 2-4 weeks mentioned above isn't a bad guess, and certainly not worse than other estimations mentioned in this thread. It is the same language, after all, not a different dialect, more of a different register. There will be misunderstandings, you may blank out on entire sentences, etc. But with a preparation like that, it's perfectly doable.
If you want to understand the everyday language, you should listen to everyday language (by being in the country or talking to people and what not), but if you don't have the opportunity/desire - TV, Youtube and similar sources are your next best bet. You've said:
none of which completely resemble natural speech
But so what? Nothing completely resembles natural speech except for natural speech itself. It can still be good enough for you purpose.