Yet another woe of non-phonetic writing systems
I was in Mexico last week and was quite excited to try my Spanish there. I studied some Spanish 3–4 years ago using Michel Thomas courses, and did a few levels on Duolingo, and combined with my French, I can get a general sense of simple written Spanish, but I had literally zero on-ground speaking experience. There are plenty of Spanish speakers in California, so it’s not difficult at all to find people to chat with if you really care, but it somehow never happened.