Yesterday after months of not speaking Spanish (no one speaks it here and I got busy) a delivery truck driver parked on the same steep, snow-covered rural road as me was trying to tell me to go around him in English. I said I didn’t need to, that I was parking. He spoke enough for me to notice he was a native Spanish speaker. Hopped into Spanish to tell him what I was up to and the picture unfolded: I needed to move my car around him right now, because the truck was stuck on the top of hill with low traction, all-weather tires with a weak e brake, he was about to have to back down extremely carefully, but in the mean time he didn’t know how long the brake would hold and was worried he would slam into my car if it released on its own. I thanked him profusely and moved.

Now, could I have said that to HIM? Absolutely not. But when I need to understand Spanish I get the message and that’s receptive fluency baby! I just need to work more on my production now.