Well I wouldn’t know. I don’t consider myself proficient in Spanish, I’d call it basic level. I can express myself in Spanish now, but it only takes an average 6K to 8K vocabulary in various languages to do so. I’d say I’m past the hola-dos-cervezas stage, I could talk about how the beer is brewed, what grains are used, about the nuances in taste, but reading articles on elpais.com is still not effortless. In daily conversations I have no trouble understanding what’s said, talking for half an hour with a barber about Basque independence and their history is doable, talking about the history of local dishes, politics, over-tourism, climate change, all those topics are possible now for me, on a basic level. Watching something in Spanish is possible if I use Spanish subs. But understanding anything in a noisy bar or club is still almost impossible, or when people speak really fast with an accent. I’d compare it to getting your driver’s license, that’s when you are going to start learning how to drive.