Guys, I can understand pretty well what is said in the text in English, but I am not good at listening and speaking English. I can form sentences a little, but I sometimes make serious mistakes, such as putting the tense wrong.
I used an online translator to write the text in this thread.
English’s notoriously one of the hardest languages to learn. Don’t worry about getting the tenses wrong. People do that all the time who are conversationally fluent speaking English as a second language. Any native English speaker won’t be phased by it, and can easily tell what you’re saying.
If someone said they maked a mistake, I wouldn’t be confused. If someone said “I was going to the mall yesterday” any native English speaker would know that you meant “I went to the mall yesterday.”
Consider that your mental health situation might be giving you some tunnel vision making it easy to rule out viable paths forward. Honestly, if you can read and understand this response, I would say you are generally fluent. At least with reading and writing.
I believe “I was going to the mall yesterday” is perfectly grammatical. It’s in the past continuous tense, if I’m not mistaken, and it would generally be used to describe something we were doing when something else happened.
Replace “going” with “walking”, and you have the first sentence in someone’s story about, say, the dinosaur attack they witnessed on the way to the mall.
Since I was a kid, I was always told that English is one of the easiest languages to learn. I learned it primarily from movies, shows and videogames. School wasn’t very helpful in that regard. My usage of the language is almost exclusively for listening and reading, I speak in it very sparsely. Nobody in my vicinity uses it. So I wouldn’t consider myself to be fluent because I have no idea how my conversation with native speaker would go. If I catch myself, I try to think in it every chance I get.
I’ve messed with Spanish, Italian, German, and Swahili. It is not my opinion that these languages are more difficult to learn than English, even with the reduced pronouns and gendered nouns.
You know, what’s funny… even if I have money and skills, I won’t be able to leave here, because before the age of 30 (it used to be up to 27 years old) you need to have a military ID in order to (not only work officially, but also) from here leave, but even those who served in the army are still sent to the military registration and enlistment office at the border. And this is not surprising, because in this fucking country there is no justice, no respect for human rights, nothing… even if the military registration and enlistment office says that you can cross the border, often in Russian “jurisprudence” it turns out that these government bodies can redirect you back and forth ad infinitum, it’s just a mockery…
If you don’t have a military ID or you do anyway, then by contacting government agencies, you attract attention (like criminals, no wonder, right?) to yourself; and during mobilization, it seems that only those over 60+ can leave the country
There is still uncertainty with mobilization, that is, the door to your apartment can be hidden at any moment and dragged to the military registration and enlistment office by force. It would be possible to hide from mobilization, but in order to hide from mobilization I need to hide in the forest or in the village, but firstly, I don’t have money, and in the village the products will be of lower quality (even if there are some shops there) , the shops will be unreliable and the prices will be high, other people who live in this village may hand me over to the police; there are no houses anywhere in the forest (nowhere to live), nowhere to buy food, maniacs may be encountered or eaten by bears;
Reading all this seems so unreal to me, since I’m in Sweden. It’s like you are living in hell, while I’m in heaven. Sweden has a lot of immigration and of course I understand that when I read stories such as yours.
I’m really sorry that you got born in that country. I was just lucky to get born in this one. It seems like most countries on the planet are pretty bad places. Western and Northern Europe seems to be the best countries.
Hang in there and dont give up hope, even though I know that is easy to say and hard to do.
TG channel Идите лесом doesn’t report a lot of the cases when persons couldn’t leave. We both know how it’s not exactly an air-tight system on all of it’s levels. That’s the reason we’ve came to this and sometimes it works in our favor.
Since you are scarried to shits by the voenkom, I’d suggest to get all papers about your illnesses. One plus chance that can work in the end. And just don’t go anywhere if you are warned, stop at any logical step of that process. Have contacts to call volounteering lawyers at yourself at all times. Some even suggest to carry a signed AGS paper, or to make any woman your representative, but I’m yet to do so.
That fear had me by my balls too. I just got used to it. It’d probably be worse for them if they waste all that energy to pack me up and to delegate me with any role, or even a gun, when I’d know I wouldn’t survive it anyway. Once again, try to see the best in the worst. Be a fucking problem.
labbbb@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
Guys, I can understand pretty well what is said in the text in English, but I am not good at listening and speaking English. I can form sentences a little, but I sometimes make serious mistakes, such as putting the tense wrong.
I used an online translator to write the text in this thread.
foggy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
English’s notoriously one of the hardest languages to learn. Don’t worry about getting the tenses wrong. People do that all the time who are conversationally fluent speaking English as a second language. Any native English speaker won’t be phased by it, and can easily tell what you’re saying.
If someone said they maked a mistake, I wouldn’t be confused. If someone said “I was going to the mall yesterday” any native English speaker would know that you meant “I went to the mall yesterday.”
Consider that your mental health situation might be giving you some tunnel vision making it easy to rule out viable paths forward. Honestly, if you can read and understand this response, I would say you are generally fluent. At least with reading and writing.
otp@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I believe “I was going to the mall yesterday” is perfectly grammatical. It’s in the past continuous tense, if I’m not mistaken, and it would generally be used to describe something we were doing when something else happened.
Replace “going” with “walking”, and you have the first sentence in someone’s story about, say, the dinosaur attack they witnessed on the way to the mall.
Cossty@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Since I was a kid, I was always told that English is one of the easiest languages to learn. I learned it primarily from movies, shows and videogames. School wasn’t very helpful in that regard. My usage of the language is almost exclusively for listening and reading, I speak in it very sparsely. Nobody in my vicinity uses it. So I wouldn’t consider myself to be fluent because I have no idea how my conversation with native speaker would go. If I catch myself, I try to think in it every chance I get.
themaninblack@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’ve messed with Spanish, Italian, German, and Swahili. It is not my opinion that these languages are more difficult to learn than English, even with the reduced pronouns and gendered nouns.
I think you’re doing great.
labbbb@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
I agree that English is the easiest language, there are fewer rules than in Russian. And the difficult ones, it seems to me, are Arabic and Chinese
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
If you can learn how to code, you could maybe work as a remote programmer and make enough money to leave that hell hole.
labbbb@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
You know, what’s funny… even if I have money and skills, I won’t be able to leave here, because before the age of 30 (it used to be up to 27 years old) you need to have a military ID in order to (not only work officially, but also) from here leave, but even those who served in the army are still sent to the military registration and enlistment office at the border. And this is not surprising, because in this fucking country there is no justice, no respect for human rights, nothing… even if the military registration and enlistment office says that you can cross the border, often in Russian “jurisprudence” it turns out that these government bodies can redirect you back and forth ad infinitum, it’s just a mockery… If you don’t have a military ID or you do anyway, then by contacting government agencies, you attract attention (like criminals, no wonder, right?) to yourself; and during mobilization, it seems that only those over 60+ can leave the country
There is still uncertainty with mobilization, that is, the door to your apartment can be hidden at any moment and dragged to the military registration and enlistment office by force. It would be possible to hide from mobilization, but in order to hide from mobilization I need to hide in the forest or in the village, but firstly, I don’t have money, and in the village the products will be of lower quality (even if there are some shops there) , the shops will be unreliable and the prices will be high, other people who live in this village may hand me over to the police; there are no houses anywhere in the forest (nowhere to live), nowhere to buy food, maniacs may be encountered or eaten by bears;
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Reading all this seems so unreal to me, since I’m in Sweden. It’s like you are living in hell, while I’m in heaven. Sweden has a lot of immigration and of course I understand that when I read stories such as yours.
I’m really sorry that you got born in that country. I was just lucky to get born in this one. It seems like most countries on the planet are pretty bad places. Western and Northern Europe seems to be the best countries.
Hang in there and dont give up hope, even though I know that is easy to say and hard to do.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
TG channel Идите лесом doesn’t report a lot of the cases when persons couldn’t leave. We both know how it’s not exactly an air-tight system on all of it’s levels. That’s the reason we’ve came to this and sometimes it works in our favor.
Since you are scarried to shits by the voenkom, I’d suggest to get all papers about your illnesses. One plus chance that can work in the end. And just don’t go anywhere if you are warned, stop at any logical step of that process. Have contacts to call volounteering lawyers at yourself at all times. Some even suggest to carry a signed AGS paper, or to make any woman your representative, but I’m yet to do so.
That fear had me by my balls too. I just got used to it. It’d probably be worse for them if they waste all that energy to pack me up and to delegate me with any role, or even a gun, when I’d know I wouldn’t survive it anyway. Once again, try to see the best in the worst. Be a fucking problem.
labbbb@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
I will, of course, try to gain skills (for example, programming), but again it is difficult due to poor mental health
1984@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Of course, it must be really hard to focus on that when you don’t feel you have basic life security even.