Ah my German is a little more advanced than that, but every time I stumble through trying to communicate in German they immediately switch to English. It's not like I can blame them, I wouldn't have time for my fumbling halting German either.
What I'd do if I lived in Germany is every day read the front page of the newspaper, looking up every word I didn't know.
Due to the internet, I encounter a lot more German than I used to. For example, Netflix runs a lot of movies Auf Deutsch, and I try to figure out what they're saying.
Does make it hard to get practice though.