I've taught English to thousands of students who learned it as a foreign language, built and run a school with two partners and I'm the one who was in charge of

I've taught English to thousands of students who learned it as a foreign language, built and run a school with two partners and I'm the one who was in charge of the curriculum and teaching side. I'm positive that 2,000 words isn't enough to be "passably fluent" in the poster's words. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something (or has read too much Tim Ferriss). Yes, it's possible to express a large number of daily life phrases such as "which bus goes to the train station?" or "what's in #3 on the lunch menu?" with a tiny vocabulary but you often won't understand the answers. I've done this before in a few languages.