An exchange with @alchemist in the German forum got me thinking:-
He mentioned how he was looking forward to speaking once he was happy with his reading vocab. As I know the danger of this (there are some languages in which I am a fluent reader, but not at all a speaker), I advised him to pare down his extensive vocab when speaking.
I love to give an amazing guy as an example, apart from myself. He was a proper bookworm and read English and Russian to a very high level, the more complex, the better. Unfortunately he could not/would not differentiate between the various registers and used the same elevated language regardless of the situation he found himself in.
My advice to myself and others afflicted with perfectionism is:
In speaking a foreign language, less is more for everyday use.
Let the less be as fluent as you can, but don’t be too flowery.
Think of it as an up-turned pyramid:
The narrow end is the beginning of the language journey and the broad base (at the top) is all that you can learn.
You should be able to move effortlessly up and down the various levels within the pyramid.
P.S. The thread is Ich Kann Es Nicht Übersetzen Auf Englisch: "Faszinierend ...