u/Emmelientje69

I know (or heard) that Russians avoid interactions with strangers, which I do as well here in Belgium so that's not a problem

However, I do want to know how greetings work if you have to order at a restaurant or café, or if you have a question in a store

I know the basic привет and Duolingo gave me more things like good afternoon, good morning, good day, good evening, goodnight, but how much do they matter?

It also gave me извините which sounds more useful for questions

I'm asking this because when I started learning French, I found out that it's frowned upon to use bonjour after 5pm and that not saying bonjour before entering a room is rude as well. I thought it was just a stereotype, but my French teacher doubled down on it before our trip to Paris.

However, on my trip to Poland, I could just use dzień dobry all the time

So yeah, I want to know how the locals do it. I know that it's just привет with close friends, but I don't have those yet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I doubt that I'll be able to do an exchange to Russia in the circumstances but I will be studying the language at university

This annoys me a lot more than it should. It's come to a point where using this word normally, and not as a filler (eg: "I always do it like this"), feels annoying

It's less irritating when it's someone who's not fluent in English and is trying to figure out their sentences, compared to fluent people using it every 4 words

"Like, I understand that this is like a big problem, but like, I don't like know if like the context could make like a big difference here, like, you know"

I don't mind it when they say "we have other stuff as well" but after confirming that I WANT water, they still keep recommending alternatives numerous times as if liking water is weird. There's one particular example of a friend's uncle who kept bringing me Fanta, Sprite or Coke whenever I'd come over, while knowing I don't drink it

I've been working at a ski rental for a while now, but I still have problems with sounding warm and kind. Even when I'm not in a bad mood, I feel like the way I speak is just too direct and blunt. And whenever I try something different, it sounds over the top like a Trader Joe's cashier

I don't know if the problem could be the way I phrase things, but the main problem is definitely the intonation

For example, I'd ask "what's your shoe size?" for adjusting the skis, and every time I just sound either monotone and moody or demanding (as a result of trying to add intonation)

What do I do? Because I also think I have a resting bitch face, but according to colleagues, I don't

I've already permanently banned him from touching my window or my mosquito frame (or whatever that thing is called in English) because whenever something doesn't cooperate, he just forces it until it breaks. Normally I'd let him handle it himself, but this is about MY window

Well, a few months ago he tore out the bottom of the mosquito frame because it wasn't really budging. After my mom crashing out and helping me repair it decently, it worked if you handled it carefully. I clarified again that he is NOT ALLOWED to go near my window anymore, and that if he wanted to help me get fresh air, he should leave it and let me deal with it

Apparently that wasn't enough, because today, he closed my window and permanently damaged the mosquito frame. It won't budge no matter how hard you try, because the rope is just stuck this way

I don't understand how someone can ignore such simple requests. It's MY window, and I already told him I'll deal with heat or dusty air if I have to, just so that he won't ruin anything

One of my teachers is a native Greek speaker so she gave optional basic Greek classes to volunteering students. I attended since I love learning languages in general, but I stumbled upon a topic that I had only seen on the internet

I told her that I've had a year of ancient Greek classes within my Latin course a few years ago and pointed out some shifts in pronunciation through history, but she claimed that Greek has pretty much never changed since Ancient Greek. I asked her then how there are so many ways to say [i] (ει, η, ι, υ, οι), and she brushed it off, saying it has always been like this

I know we can never know for sure how it sounded, but claiming that a language has stayed almost the exact same over CENTURIES feels unlikely. I'm not an expert, so can either native Greeks or language experts clarify who's right here? I don't mind being proven wrong, but I've seen this discussion on the internet before and I never thought I'd have this discussion in real life

My cat likes to catch small animals like lizard, mice and small birds. Now, whenever it's a bird, my dad gets pissed and wants to help it escape. Lizards, ehh a bit less serious.

Mice? The moment I try to save it, he gets mad and demands that I leave her be, since it's her nature. Yes, it is her nature, but when it's any other animal, she's suddenly a horrible murderer.

Listen, you don't have to protect mice if you don't want to, but what's so horrible about me saving any animal? The problem is not about dirtying the house, it's definitely about pity (he said it himself).

Both birds and mice are cute beings to me who both deserve to exist, so if he wants me to let the mice get killed, I'll let her kill the birds and lizards too

If you disagree, feel free to call me out. This is just my opinion on treating nature equally, because why the double standards, and why push your standards onto me?

After ending a toxic friendship a while ago, I made new friends quite quickly. However, because of my past friendship I find myself subconsciously overthinking what I or others say because I don't want things to repeat. I keep telling myself to get over it, but it doesn't work. Any advice on how to fix this?

Let's say I needed brown sugar. So whenever I'd open the newspaper and see something that contains brown sugar, like pancakes, I'd buy it, thinking it could somehow count for a truck order, boat, town visitor or whatever

We were watching a movie with flashy effects, and I asked him if cinemas gave warnings about flashes or not (since I rarely go to the cinema)

He simply replied: who cares? If you can't stand this, you're just a pussy. Just close your eyes when it comes on

Bitch wha 😭

(He also discovered today that epilepsy was already a thing as far as back in Ancient Rome... I hate to break it to you, but it's probably been around for about as long as humans and flashes exist)

I told him numerous times DON'T TOUCH MY WINDOW OR FLY SCREEN

Why, you may ask? Well, he one tore out my fly screen and I had to push it back in, but the sides were already damaged permanently

He also often opens my window, doesn't tell me, and when I go upstairs it's freezing in my room

So I told him he can't be near my window anymore, but he KEEPS opening it and closing the damaged screens (which are now very hard to scroll back) and he uses the excuse that he wants to help me

How hard is it to understand NO?? How many times will he open or close my window until he breaks my screens again? Cuz he doesn't give a fuck, he'll tear anything apart if it doesn't cooperate

I've had these friends for a couple years now, and everything was perfect at first (as always...)

However, I started noticing slight changes, as if my existence and random traits of mine started to annoy them (like the fact that I use a lot of hand gestures when explaining something)

I never said anything and always just assumed it's a minor thing, or that I should just change those traits because they could be annoying

However, a couple weeks ago I discovered how they think about me

We had a cosplay event at school recently with theme "films/series" (I'll get back to that)

I asked them if I could hang out after school, but they apparently had to go urgently, meaning they couldn't wait 1 minute for me to get my bike. I called them, they didn't pick up. I texted them, and they basically abandoned me

I had been wondering why they did this for so long, until someone snitched. I decided to cosplay Jinu from Kpop demon hunters because I quite liked the movie (not even in an obsessive way) and I wanted to show that I proudly like it, regardless of what people think

Well apparently they tried to run away because they didn't want to be associated with my appearance, and they had been complaining about my "childish" clothing style for a while

(Look, I know my clothes are quite basic and/or fit for a 13 year old, but I'm busy saving up for a university dorm, a new laptop and a potential car, and as long as my clothes aren't dirty or torn apart I don't really care how I look)

After the snitch, I decided to just stop hanging out as an attempt to drop them, but then all of a sudden one of them starts talking to me again as if he cares about my feelings. I don't know if he feels forced, or if he genuinely feels bad, and he does this a few days after abandoning me after school. I don't want to go back and have history repeat, but I don't want to be a dck towards them (or be perceived as one)

What should I do? I've been trying to make new friends and they keep failing. I feel like my anxiety to have people dislike me has skyrocketed, causing me to come off as too awkward or weird, and it sucks

I have a huge fear of anything that can make a sudden loud noise, like ballons, champagne bottles and fireworks

But whenever I'm at a party, I don't know what to do, because I don't want those objects to be around, but I don't want to ruin the party for others

I usually just leave, cuz I don't want people to either complain or call me childish

I've seen a lot of videos where people explain that quite a few non native English speakers find English easier to understand in their native accent, like Korean

Is this the case for Italian, if we exclude speaking at supersonic speed?