u/Top_Development_1777

So I'm not a native English speaker. My native language is Chinese, I only speak Mandarin but grew up around 2 other dialects so I can understand most things in those 2 dialects but never spoke them.

Because of unexpected immigration to an English-speaking country, I had to learn English to the same level as my native peers from scratch. My parents are not fluent in English so I've never spoken with them in English. When I started school (which was completely in English except the 2nd language lessons), I basically didn't know any words except yes/no, numbers 1-13? and half-knew the names of the months. It took a few months for me to understand what was going around me in school and an entire year before I switched to thinking in English and dared to speak English in front of other people, then it took about 5 more years of dedicated efforts, regular tutoring, and daily immersion in school to catch up with the natives in terms of my grades. I got way better at English than my native language (but still struggle with things like prepositions and basic expressions in English sometimes because I lack native-level exposure from family and early childhood).

Throughout this time I also had to learn Chinese as a second language in school for 10 years, continued talking to my family members completely in Mandarin, and retained the ability to sound completely native while being at least 90% fluent while speaking in Mandarin. I notably struggle when I try to read some literary texts in Chinese with more sophisticated language, but I can understand everything else in Chinese without any translations into English. I can't really express *all the things* I want in Chinese whereas I can in English, so I could improve on that, but I just don't have a lot of interest and motivation to do that at the moment.

I mean, the languages that I already know are objectively really useful in today's world, and give me a huge advantage in the breadth of content and people I can interact with.

The reason I wanted to learn some Russian (other than it showing up on my feed a lot) is that I wanted to explore and understand another world of how things can be expressed, in a way that is notably different from both of the languages that I know. I don't want to learn a language just for the sake of being able to say that I learned "a" language or attained some level of fluency. As someone who likes history, it helps me understand more about parts of a culture and various historical eras that are not very accessible where I'm from. And as someone who likes (English) literature (which I took in school) and wants to explore ways to express myself, it can be very helpful in broadening my horizons. I will be able to read and appreciate some of the nuances in the original texts of some literary works, learn another mode of poetry and finally appreciate a whole other world of poetry. I do not expect myself to get anywhere remotely close to native levels of fluency because I have done that with English and know how much time, effort, resources, opportunities, and regular exposure it took, which I don't have in my life for another language.

I have no use for Russian in my daily life except for understanding more content on social media (yes a lot of the music/art from independent creators that appear on my feed are either in Russian or have a lot of Russian comments, I have to translate them, it's annoying, sometimes the translation is wonky or I don't even have the option to translate) and maybe swearing at things with a more variety. There is no notable Russian-speaking community in my small Asian country. I don't have the time *or budget* to go out of my way to actually practice speaking with real people.

But being able to get anywhere in a new language that's not too similar to either of the languages I know is even more difficult than I thought. I watched one (1) video introducing some basic grammatical conventions in Russian and wanted to crash out (I can overcome this but I realize that it's going to take a lot more getting used to than I expected). It is a lot of dedicated work which I have to be serious about, not expect myself to get anywhere with random bouts of curiosity and eagerness. I already know the alphabet but it's not like it's going to be of much help in the other things. Most importantly, I study something pretty intensive (and unrelated) in university and have a lot of other things to do in my life.

Should I just give up, focus on other things in life, and be happy staying within the languages I'm already fluent in? I could spend the time getting to a C2 in my native language and being a better bilingual.

Backstory (read if interested) >!So I've been dealing with a shit ton of new reactions to foods I've never had a problem with, and a general massive increase in symptoms of my known dust mite allergy (which I have been taking H1 antihistamines daily for over the last 10+ years) ever since my immune system got messed up taking antibiotics and having a routine vaccine right after (this was in late July). Not currently diagnosed with MCAS, but on the 4H1+2H2 protocol and have not stopped reacting to new foods yet. Thus I've been trying life improvements that could regulate my immune system and Lactobacillus rhamnosus probiotics is one of them (probiotics strain that's shown to help regulate immune system and gut problems). It's quite clear that my massive increase in problems may be linked to gut dysbiosis anyway.!<

Anyway, since the lists of foods I could eat has gone down by so much, I am now mostly surviving off Ensure drinks for baseline calories and nutrients, but one problem that I noticed early on was that bacteria would immediately THRIVE in it and I would get bloating etc., stomach upset, all the horrible stuff when I drank it, which caused me to avoid drinking it as much as I could, and I ended up eating so little that I started having new and much worse problems.

The solution I found, which helps both with the probiotic proliferation in my gut and the risk of bacterial overgrowth after taking ensure, is to pour the Ensure into a bowl, open a capsule of Lactobacillus rhamnosus into the bowl, mix thoroughly with a fork, and leave the mixture sitting there for exactly 20-25min (not longer). I would consume it after that. This really helped, I usually get 0 bloating and GI upset after drinking the mixture now, and I feel good. I imagine it helping the probiotics "settle into" the food you're eating too.

Аа: The letter A

Вв: The capital letter B, even in lowercase

Ьь: The lowercase letter b, even in uppercase

Ъъ: Lowercase b but it looks pretty

Бб: Bolded b but in lowercase it kind of looks like a 6

Ыы: bisexual (Putin banned this recently)

Сс: C

Дд: You may go “what the hell is this”, but it's actually a D. Why did they decide to make D look like that? It's not even easy to write(

Ее: E, same as in English

Єє: Euro sign 💶 (simplified)

Ëë: E/e but it's very personable and happy to see you

Нн: The letter H, but in both cases

Іі: The normal letter I

Її: i but with 2 dots (in both cases)

Кк: uppercase K in both cases

Жж: I don't really know what this is but my educated guess is the letter K (but it goes both ways)

Мм: Uppercase M in both cases

Ии: Reverse letter N, because Cyrillic speakers are quirky ig

Йй: N but it's angry

Пп: this may remind you of an n but it's not I swear

Оо: O

Фф: looks like something between an O and a p. I personally like how it looks. 

Рр: P

Гг: The lowercase letter r, but at a perfect right angle. How neat! 

Ґґ: The lowercase letter r again but it's a bit fucked up

Лл: my educated guess says this is an r. 

Яя: reverse letter R

Тт: The letter T

Цц: very squarish cousin of the letter U but it has a tail 🦊 

Шш: W but it looks like a tetris block so it's cool

Щщ: the W again but it has a tail

Хх: the letter X

Чч: kind of looks like the child of Y and a 4 

Уу: the lowercase letter y but for both cases?

Юю: a Korean letter that made its way into Cyrillic

Зз: The number 3. Cyrillic speakers just like to throw the letter in there

- Ээ: The letter 3 but it looks more like the letter c in reverse (think if it as the kid of the letter 3 and the reverse letter c)

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Memorized them?

Remember, Cyrillic is just English but more Quirky and diverse! 🦅

I was living alone with a severe food restriction for more than a year, so I was already eating SUPER inconsistently and frequently not eating much for an entire day, making me physically unfit (not enough energy to exercise) and almost underweight. Then, my troubles that look very much like MCAS (I'm still waiting for my specialist appointment date...) got very prominent 3 weeks ago when I started reacting to everything I could still eat. I became afraid of eating and also didn't realistically have enough to eat, but at this point I was also so used to eating extremely inconsistently that I didn't notice how bad my energy deficit was and how it's caused me all these problems

I have no energy to vent much and it's getting late. I still have school tomorrow and I don't even know if I can sustain enough energy to take the long transport there, and sit in class without feeling like my body is shutting down.

I'm already on the 4H1 + 2H2 daily (even before what happened 3 weeks ago, I was taking daily H1 and they weren't enough to drown out my severe dust mite allergy symptoms). I'm going to get a proper filter to deal with very probable mold issue (absolutely zero chance I can move out) and try more specific probiotics

I'm going to try to survive this, but I'm a medical student and I'm expected to do a certain amount of work and show up physically for many classes a week. Now I'm just watching my energy get depleted extremely quickly like a phone on 5-10% battery even when I spend my entire day trying to have enough baseline energy intake and conserve my physical energy by lying down and not moving unnecessarily. Before I put in my full effort to try to meet my energy needs as much as possible, I was functioning like I was on 1% battery and even slight muscle movements like nodding my head 3 times and moving my eyes would make me feel this immediate depletion in my energy and my body would start to shut down and not move. Before the starvation finally caught up to me last week and caused all this, I could still walk 10km with a heavy backpack (but I also didn't replenish enough energy after) and not feel like I've overexerted at all or feel anything significant in the 4 days after.

I have read about just how much worse it can get, and the energy problem is already basically a (temporary but difficult to fix) disability.

I grew up speaking Mandarin and English. It really frustrates me that I have no idea how to roll my R's, because it's not a sound that either of the languages that I learned produces. There are some nice songs that I want to sing along to but get stuck on this.

Can people who can do it describe the proper motions and placements of e.g. your tongue to pronounce it properly?

So I (20F not pregnant) got the Tdap vaccine (edit: booster) 3 weeks ago, and within half an hour I felt that my muscles were barely working and I had to drag myself back to where I stayed. It continued, got better in the second week I think, but I'm now at the end of the 3rd week and this whole week it's been getting worse. My mental energy honestly doesn't feel different when I don't move my body, but my physical energy is so nonexistent that I feel completely wiped out after nodding or shaking my head twice. I can barely walk to the lift, take the lift, and go downstairs to take something. Sleep does not make it better, it makes it worse.

About 5 days after the vaccine I also had an anaphylactic reaction (no anaphylactic shock) to a new type of food that I tried, subsequently seem to have become allergic to a few new types of food that I used to eat all the time. I have a referral to an allergist but because it's the public healthcare system, it takes forever and they still haven't secured me a slot yet.

I don't have aches or whatever. I've had a FBC and iron panel done yesterday and the numbers were not just normal but also in the optimal range (my FBC also looks the same as it was 2 months ago, when I was feeling healthy before the vaccine), it's not anemia.

Edit to add: when I got this vaccine when I was about 10yo, I had high fever and was really ill for a full week, but was okay after that.

I think my immune system has gone crazy after the vaccine. Has anyone else had something similar, did you recover, and what did you do to recover?

This is truly debilitating because I'm in med school and I can't keep things up if I don't recover soon. I'm also required to take this vaccine once every 10 years.

I'm currently about 20yo, my period has not stopped for more than 3 weeks now, and it is neither very heavy nor very light. This is not surprising because I started another hormonal medication about 2 months ago, which finally fixed the serious issues that I had for years (I've tried a lot of other hormonal medications before, nothing worked for this issue). The only negative effect I've gotten is that my periods now go on with no end in sight and restart earlier than they're supposed to. I don't mind any of this if not for the consequence of anemia. I get zero pain whatsoever and the bleeding itself is manageable. However, I've started to have symptoms of anemia, and I need to fix it as soon as possible without going to the doctor (I'll explain why later).

I couldn't go to school this morning because I was so tired after I woke up, and I get insanely tired after just walking around a bit. I used to be able to walk 10km+ without feeling tired. One of the professionals whom I see once a week said I looked a lot more pale last week than the week before that. I still do have mental energy and sharpness and don't feel different at all when I just lie on my bed and look at my phone, but the moment I do something that involves physical exertion, I run out of energy.

At this point I am too tired to do all the research on this and just want some recommendations for the simplest supplement components to look out for and buy at the mall tomorrow (it's late at night right now) to address the anemia.

Please don't tell me to see a doctor on this. I've already done my best with figuring out my hormones (with a doctor) but can't get any new medications (including any kind of birth control or other hormonal medications) or procedures done without my parents' consent since the stupid age of medical autonomy is 21 in my country. I have 13 more months to tough it out and I WILL see doctors with my own autonomy to get all my issues addressed once I turn 21.

My parents are against me getting any hormonal adjustments and would give me a lot of trouble if they found out that I was having problems like this. They would also force me to go off my current hormonal medication, which are the only things that have ever helped me mentally function at a basic level. I've adjusted my regimen through many years and this is the only optimal point by all other metrics, so I can't really change it.

I just want to do what I can to fix the anemia before I get medical autonomy, which is basic supplements (I also need cheap ones because I really can't afford much right now). Please recommend some.

I (20) have already been struggling with finding proper food to eat for a long time with just the strict restriction on wheat/gluten, because I live in a small Asian country which has nonexistent efforts to look out for people who cannot eat wheat/gluten, apart from the rare expensive cafe/restaurant here and there. In the last 2 weeks, I've had unavoidable accidental exposures twice, once from a dental procedure and once from my university event deciding to use flour to play the very first game and get everyone covered in flour (even though I sat out).

Then, 8 days ago, I got the Tdap booster shot because it was required by my university course. The last time I had it, I had a high fever and was miserable for an entire week, so this was already not looking good in terms of how my immune system would (over)respond to the shot.

Well, 4 days after the shot, I decided to try some porridge made from buckwheat groats I bought online (this was after trying and failing to make healthy sustenance food and eating really horribly for a long time). Unfortunately the package listed "may contain traces of wheat and barley", but I tried to be careful by washing it 6 times before cooking. Well, I developed anaphylactic symptoms pretty quickly although my blood oxygen ended up being okay when I arrived at the ER (I didn't have an epipen). I don't know if it's the buckwheat itself or possible contamination at this point. I don't even know what my exact problem with wheat/gluten is, because I went strictly gluten-free 2 years ago after my symptoms got really bad, I had important exams coming up and was too broke to get proper testing anytime soon so I just tried staying away from wheat and all my symptoms went away. Anyway I react pretty fast to even a crumb's worth of accidental ingestion (within minutes) and continue to have a horrible dull ache in my GI system, horrible mood, and general ill feeling for up to a few days after that. Nothing has shown to make the symptoms better except alcohol which numbs the symptoms but causes more damage.

Well, I decided to buy brown rice after I got out of the ER because (1) I was hungry and had nothing to eat (2) I had always been eating rice products (even in snacks and supplements) on a daily basis all my life. I made sure to get a brand that's gluten-free (and it's also organic). When I was washing the rice, my hand in contact with the water started itching. My mouth, lips, and any part of my body that came into contact with the cooked rice also started itching, I had stomach ache and brain fog after eating it. I have a twice daily hormonal supplement (I have a verified deficiency) that I can't just stop taking out of nowhere, it contains rice flour, I've already bought another brand without rice or any other potential allergens as an ingredient but it's going to take a few days to ship. Every single time I take it, the allergic symptoms get worse. Now it's getting close to how I react to accidental wheat ingestion. I hate this.

To make things even worse, I bought some potatoes that I would regularly buy from the supermarket and cleaned and boiled them. I didn't get the itchiness reaction to it and things seemed fine at first, but an hour or so later, I started feeling more and more horrible, like classic food poisoning, eventually got myself to throw up and felt a lot better. I've only actually thrown up 5 times in the last 14 years despite having GI discomfort a lot of the time, so it takes a lot for me to actually throw up.

The potatoes looked fine. I cut off any parts that looked suspicious, like slightly sprouted, already. I still had doubts that it might have been improper preparation, so I got my parents to help me prepare another bag of the potatoes I bought in a way that has been safe. Well, I started getting the same symptoms but less intense from just eating one chunk of it so I stopped eating it (didn't have to throw up but took about an hour to fully feel ok again?).

I also tried some plain steamed corn and had a similar reaction as rice (minus the GI discomfort?) but milder so I decided to stop eating it to be safe.

I still have to note that ever since I got the Tdap vaccine, finished my course of antibiotics for some dental thing, and started taking probiotics at the same time, I've been getting GI discomfort + severe fatigue + brain fog for at least an hour after eating ANYTHING that contained a good amount of fat, that I used to be able to tolerate. I also had fatty stools yesterday. So at least for now, I can't substitute my diet with high fats instead of carbs. I've also been taking famotidine for 2 days before the vaccine and continued taking it for about a week after the vaccine (I don't usually take it at all) so that might be a major factor to why I've been having issues digesting fats.

The ER has referred me to an allergist and a dietitian but I haven't received the appointment date for the allergist yet. The dietitian appointment is in more than a month's time. It's going to take at least a few weeks before I see the allergist. I'm not rich enough to go the faster route in my country.

I will get checked again for wheat allergy (last time I had the IgE blood test in another country, it was negative for wheat but I hadn't even had a minor accidental exposure in over half a year at that time so I don't know if it could've been missed), plus all grains (including buckwheat etc.), potatoes and other food items. I have a known severe allergy to dust mites and have been taking antihistamines daily for like 10+ years, it's not enough to relieve the symptoms half the time, so I'm definitely gonna get immunotherapy for that plus anything food related that I turn out to be allergic to.

Not being able to eat rice, on top of wheat, is way worse than not being able to eat wheat alone (which is already really bad). Practically all my favorite snacks after I went on the strict diet had rice flour in them.

I'm going to keep trying but I fucking hate everything. I've been through A LOT of horrible shit mentally and emotionally ever since a really young age but at least I had \*a bit\* more control over how my response was, than my body's fucking response to such normal things that are EVERYWHERE and in FUCKING EVERYTHING. Not to mention that I'm a good candidate for MCAS and everything. I'm not going to downplay psychological trauma (it may also very well be the bulk of the reason that I'm suffering from so much physical malfunction today), in my experience it has been more overwhelming, excruciating, and extreme to go through, and ruins more aspects of your ability to experience life, but having physical ailments ruin your life is a lot more \*despair-inducing\* because you are at the mercy of current medical advancements. It's a bit like, "I know I can recover when I get to a point somewhere far in the future (it takes SO MUCH but you still know where to go), but it hurts so much that I don't even want to fight anymore" VS "I really want to fight for myself, but I don't even know if there exists a point somewhere far in the future where I could recover". I dealt with the former for more than half my life, got on a decent upward track, and now I'm dealing with the latter.

I'm a medical student (just finished my first year) but if my health crashes further, I really don't know if I can graduate and actually make it. My drive to fight is really up there, but my actual ability to fight... I don't know.

I (MF13) am full of disdain for some of my teachers.

I am also pissed at the homework they give, so I want to talk shit about them all over the blank parts of the pages before submitting my homework. But I don't want to make it so obvious what I'm talking about so they don't straight up call my parents and have a Very Serious Chat.

I've tried morse code but it's too inefficient to write. Like why did they even invent that thing?? I don't want to do Korean because Kpop and Kdrama is only for basic people WHOM I DO NOT WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH and also East Asian language eww. White language better. Greek alphabet reminds me too much of math (eww). So I figured I should do this in Cyrillic.

Nowadays got AI, so if I wrote an actual language then my teachers could easily translate what I was saying about them with their phone camera. My genius 600IQ plan is to write English words, as close to how they are pronounced as possible, in Cyrillic, onto my worksheets, so I can freely talk shit about my teachers and they wouldn't be able to read what I wrote. This is the Ultimate Power Trip 😎😎😎

However I do not know Jack Shit about Russian except idi nahui cyka blyat and the reverse R thing

and I am also too lazy to download luodingo or read wikipedia.

Thus I am looking for native speakers on Reddit to teach me for free (im 13 you know I have no way to pay you) please help out a poor student thank you

P.S. to spice things up and confuse the AI, I want to include characters from all the languages with Cyrillic (I don't know how many languages there are and I can't name them and I'm also too lazy to Google so pls native speakers spoonfeed me with info pleasee