On the Fluent in 3 Months forum, I posted a goal, which was to speak Spanish for an entire day.
Well, maybe I should adjust my goal … or at least modify it with the caveat that my family (mother, father — who we live next to — and kids) are English-speakers only. So with my parents at least, I’ll have to break code and speak English if there’s something that needs communicated. It’s with my kids, however, that I need to stick to my mission (except when we’re doing homeschool). I think that they understand enough Spanish to be able to intuit what I’m talking about in most cases. In situations where they don’t, I can probably mime or use gestures to get my point across.
A little more than a week ago, I did my first interpretation for someone; well, it wasn’t my first EVER – but it has been almost two decades since the last time, and that was a disaster because my Spanish was much less back then. Anyway, I did OK but my problem is that when I hear a word or expression I don’t know, then the rest of the sentence explodes in my mind. I need to work at being able to piece together the general thought and not so much at holding on to each specific word to the point that I lose focus.