My Spanish is like that - my vocab is about a hundred words and I'm very comfortable using it but native speakers are not amused and there have been cases when I literally was asked to speak any other language
But the point is, if you were to find yourself in the countryside of a Spanish speaking country with only Spanish speakers around, you could find a way communicate what you need to survive. And 2-3 months in that environment, with no English, and you'd be fluent enough to keep up socially.