Not sure If this are right place for that (and sorry, while I do speak Englisch okay-isch, I am not native speaker), but this thoughts does make impossible to sleep at nights.
My life is taken really bad turn many years ago, and 5 years ago it become just broken.
I had my parents, my sibling, place where we lived. Everything was fine. Or I thought so.
My sibling for almost 2 whole years is… dead. There is nothing ceremonious about it. They are just… Dead.
I thought that I had wonderful parents. Even despite beating, screaming and other stuff that they told and done to me throughout the years. One of them just did not do much as parent. That resulted in many mental and physical issues, that I feel to this day.
I remember my hometown. It is now turned into rubbles. It was not great place, but I liked it.
As result of all of I left with only to move to different country, to start my life here instead.
But it is hard. Learning languages is hard. Trying to navigate this world is hard. And I do not have that much time to fix all of that.
I was always socially akward. It is hard for me. I have issues with both my body and my mind, my health. But I am mostly on my own now. With no idea how to proceed and how to deal with this pressure.
And all of that just makes me not wanting to sleep at night. Like now.
I keep thinking about that.
How go people deal with that?
Oh yes, that’s surely one indicator for us :-)
AFAIK russian isn’t much different from ukranian, yes? Like czech+slovak or german+dutch
Oh yeah. These rules are SO dumb and make NO sense. Female chair? male table? WTF? who came up with this shit… I would really like for it to go away. English is so much more simple.
It’s a funny word :) But german itself sounds like two machine-guns having sex. it’s not a beautiful language. Though ukranians sound like they’re constantly fighting with each other too. Like Thai :-)
Heck, that’s equally weird and would probably be hard to remember learning either. I once wanted to learn russian, but already gave up at kyrillic. I just suck at languages. Learned japanese 30yrs ago and already forgot 99,9% because i never actually needed it.
And yet, it’s still very random :-) But a decent approximation i guess…
Actually, before the war, I rarely ever heard russian anywhere. So i thought the russians in germany are probably as many as e.g. asians. Now it’s really VERY common in the cities to hear either russian or ukranian (can’t distinguish, but most likely ukranian, obviously) Maybe there are but they all learned decent-ish german by now and hence you’d notice less obvious.
Ugh. Currently, considering all the brutal changes the stupid government introduces, i wouldn’t wonder :-(
So, you can stay if you are actively drafted in UA? or NOT drafted?
Weird. So you’re not worthy of being german unless you just marry one? How logical :-)
Well… Kind of, yes. General structure is similar, although words from Ukrainian can become quickly very alien to Russian. In that regard, Ukrainian will be more close to Polish or, funnily enough, to Deutsch. Turn out, we use quite a lot words from it, or, at the very least, words from same source.
Words like Farbe, Ziel, words with Blitz, and so on. Even some sentence structure was making sense there, but not in Russian.
But yes.
Honestly, I really do enjoy English in many regards. Many things just not a thing there. (At least, not in modern English anyway). They do not even have different “you” anymore. Like, no “Sie” (as in “Groß person”, as our teacher loved to explain), no “du”, no “ihr”. (We also have this, but we have “combined” ‘Sie’ and ‘Ihr’ into same thing for the most part, “Ви”.), just you. And maybe added “You two/people” or “Your Highness” if you need to address them in different manner.
Or the fact that, while they do technically have grammatical gender, it almost never affect the grammatical part of language. Like, almost everything, that are not living person is “it”. Or it is living thing with known gender (dog is “it” unless specified if it is “she” or “he”).
And that is it.
It is funny for us (at least, I think so) because we use this word as “universal” word that can be used in many different situation, good or bad.
For example, you might be familiar with “suka” or “blyat” or “pisdez” or “ahuenno”. They fill similar niche. Or “fuck” in English.
Which makes it funny, since instead of forming an entire complex sentence to express your feeling about some situation… You say one word (which is also very short) and everyone understand you perfectly.
There are some useless letters, I would tell you that. Letters like “Ё”, which essentially sounds like “йо”, and only small amount of some words even use this letter. “Ёлка” (evergreen tree) or “Ёжик” (hedgehog), however many people white it as “Ежик” or “Елка” and they fine with that.
Or “ъ”. I present you with… “Hard symbol” (exist in Russian only). It is opposite or “ь” (exist in both Ukrainian and Russian), which is “soft symbol”, which supposed to make words sounds softer. It supposed to make word sound more… Uh, harder?
Hard as in you going on with you day, but then you hit some really hard rock with your leg on your way and fall.
“Объявление” (announcement, notice) — reads as “ob-(short, immediate pause)-iawlenie”.
Some might even consider “я” to be useless. It is almost never possible to properly latinize, and it sounds essentially as “йа”.
“Ы” — while not useless is… Just weird letter. It is impossible to latinize (as far I am aware — Latin does not have anything close to this letter) and it sounds like you are caveman who just saw easy pray and you started to scream to your fellow cavemans to signal that information to them.
But you, probably, referring to cursive writing and it is… Well, many letters written in very similar way.
There was this meme floating around, when someone lose their mind over learning Cyrillic and they wrote word “шиншилла”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tailed_chinchilla
This is real thing, that many letters written in this very round way. Compared to Latin, where many letters very different to write.
I would say that grammatical gender on itself is crap, but since we can not just throw it out overnight, might as well have some easy tool to easy the pain of using language.
I would say, that many of them, in fact, never really learned German. Not because they can not, but because they do not see this as necessity. They just usually were living in their own “places” and not interacting much with locals. E.g. only visiting Russian speaking doctors, barbers, schools, works and befriending only their fellow ‘comrades’ who also speak Russian.
I think there was number of around 1 million Ukrainians in Germany as of now, so this places are overfilled, and so more people have to hang out with locals as result of that.
Yep. I would say it might be especially harder in states where anti-immigration governments might win.
I think, as early as March of this east, Germany tried to cut free integration and language courses for people who want by themselves, but then later they kind of reversed this decision, but cut down available “slots” in half or more.
Nothing has changed for “” forced"" courses, however. For example, if your Jobcenter says that you must start going to courses until set Termin, then they pay for it. But even then, it is tricky system. They, usually, give you courses without problems if this is your first time, and only up to B1 level. If you would not be able to get B1, then they might refuse new courses application, and this is not that uncommon.
Typical language course in most schools consistent of 8 months. In this short timespan they cramp your brain up to B1 level, usually 3 hours a day, from Monday to Friday. And this is for German language. If it would had been English — sure, maybe 8 months is enough to get decent language skills. But German?
I am barely remembering correct articles, correct conjugations for verbs, “position zwei” or “eins”, numbers, audition, and we already doing Partizip 2, past form, and that is not to mention other stuff.
And that is me. My English knowledge helps me quite a lot, since rules there are quite similar. But mine colleagues who does not English as I do? They doing even worse.
And that not to mention that not everyone is… uh… Sharpest tool in a shed. Not everyone can look on a Tafel and be “oh, yeah, this is piece of cake”. I am certainly not.
So, I expect that I might not get B1. Not the first time, anyway.
For more then B2, you need to provide strong reason why you need this course. And if Jobcenter would not consider this to be a strong reason (or today’s berator was in bad mood), then you might get refusal.
In my case, I am not affected. Everyone who want to get 24, starting from 9 October, they need to have proof that they “done their military duties”. However, they stopped accepting all man from getting 24 around in Juni of this year. I guess, they did not had proper law in place to refuse before. This is not required for people who got here BEFORE that time.
However, I am still affected (but this is less about Germany, but about Ukraine), because in case if, for example, I need to update passport (or I will lose it), or get new documents, or bank, then it will be a problem, since most of things things are only available inside country or, in case of getting documents, they want to make sure that you are not “in search” for mobilisation, and if you are, you can simply return back, do your things, and be back :) (Which means you will be trapped inside afterward).
Sadly, it works in a similar way almost everywhere :( It is just now I have essentially 2 ways. Either somehow get citizenship here, or return back where I will die.
When you asked and got protection in one EU country, others might refuse to do so, simply referring to “well, you already got protection, so get out”. Which is bad, because there is almost not countries in the world where you can freely be infinitely when you are Ukrainian. Most require valid visa. Only with EU we have 90 days visa-free access, and I already “spent” them, so if I ever going to lose my German 24 paragraph, without getting different one (like work visa, marrying, etc) — I will be refused to even enter any other EU country. Except, of course, for deportation or returning back on my own free will.
True!
I thought this mostly applies to our far-east-immigrants, they segregate and want their own culture but with german privileges not in their own repressive state. I actually know more russians online than i’ve ever met here, so i have no educated opinion on their desire to segregate :-)
Totally. Sadly we only know total-racism or total-liberal-bullshit. No sensible middle ground. I have nothing against migrants, but i have a lot against a very special kind. You’re not allowed to voice such thoughts, you’re instantly a nazi.
yeah, that sure does sound like germany and their horrible institutions with borked “logic”.
Surely. At first i would probably feel safest with other germans too if i would emigrate. Btw, you hate russians per se now? All russians i am in contact with have absolutely no problem with ukranians and despise the stupid war.
I can’t imagine at all. But I, personally, am really bad at language-learning, and especially bad with forced school-learning. I need my own place and pace. Left highschool with a bad score in english and 25yrs later i’m close to native. like watching everything in english without subs and not missing more than i would do when watching shit in german. Others learn that in a year or so :-) German in 8 months to b1? even i would struggle lol.
Totally. Like me suddenly living in Russia. The only thing I’d understand would be <insert the one slur everyone knows here>. Horrible. Already knowing english helps a ton! That’s the only things where latin helps me sometimes. Understanding other european language’s words sometimes.
Oh yes. They CAN give you anything, but they have to see a reason, like you, AND be in a good mood. Of course you have rights and could fight for it, but…not being native, that’s a lol. And even if, it might take years, and when the decision is made you might be already long gone or already german :)
So you already did, lucky you. But that’s a mean thing to require. Being drafted means certain death :-(
Fuck yes, never thought of that. Risk loosing one while not getting the other might end you stateless :-( How often would you require to get a new one in UA? here it’s 10yrs or so.
I doubt you’d want that…currently at least, guess the UA isn’t a shithole per se. And probably you don’t want to return to the rest of your home either :-( How do you get a work-visa? when a company says “WE WANT THIS DUDE! LET HIM WORK HERE!”?
People who were born in USSR, quite often have this odd desire to return it back. I even had some experience to talk with 2 of such people when I come to Germany this year. I would say, that if they raised their kids with such mindset — then it continue to going on for longer.
But it is, probably, might be just the strong feeling of being alone or alien? Even if you learn language on very good level and be able to navigate new world — it still might feel alien. Of course, this new world might be better, but nostalgia is addictive sometimes, to the point of not being able to accept it fully.
It might get long and ranty reply, so feel free to skip it, but it might get complicated.
In general, I do not hate them, but I am cautious. Even “despise the stupid war” might not mean the same thing for you versus Russian person.
In cases like that, I would like to ask WHEN RUSSIA started war against Ukraine. And the answer is, at the very least, is 2014 (although there were some “ringing balls” as early as 2003 year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Tuzla_Island_conflict or even earlier), when they annexed Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Should I, also, mention, that in one of this regions was my hometown-birthtown? I had not seen it in 12 years, and never will again. And as bonus — Russia turned everything into shit that was good about this place.
If answer is not 2014, then it is very likely that person that you talking to — either supports it, or not considering it to be bad thing. And their against full-scale invasion only because they got their shit kicked by some subhuman “hohols”, their “little brothers”.
Or you could ask “To whom Crimea belongs to?”. Answers to that question can reveal many things about this person, sometimes, you would wish not knowing the answers.
As for my experience talking and being friends with them… It is also mixed bag. I remember being called “hohol” or having heard that Ukrainian is “Funny language” (without further explanation what does that even means) or “It is just dialect of Russian” too many times even before 2014 year.
Before 2022, I had been in active contact with 3 Russians, that I was friend with for some years.
One told me, that Ukraine is Nazis and that Russians are doing right thing. Also they told me that my home should be hit with “Kindzal” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
Another one told me, that we (Ukrainians) are bombing ourselves, and as proof tried to bring videos from “Russia Today” channel, that was already banned from YouTube for Ukraine. Several years later, that friend tried to contact me, saying similar stupid things and trying “let’s not talk about this”. But I almost immediately cut that shit and sent them to fuck off.
Last one was just “I am apolitical” type of person.
I had more friends from there, but I lost contact with them way before, and I am not really want to find out that they either “zetnik” or “apolitical” or whatever. I am already not in the best state of my life.
So… Yeah… I do not really hate them (despite the fact that they are responsible for murdering my sibling and ruining my life; attempting to murder me. Seriously, it is so scare when something fall and explodes, even 20 kilometers away), but I am not exactly feeling very safe around them.
Sadly, pace here is really fast.
I do not exactly understand when and how one should use “specific” and “whatever” Artikel. Like “das Auto” versus “ein Auto”. I asked teacher after lesson, so she could explain it better next time, and she told me, that she will prepare examples and stuff to learn the difference. But on a next day, she gave me sheet of paper, where she wrote rules and examples, and told me to learn by myself because we have no time to learn this in class. Every day is a new theme.
The funny part is, also, that is mostly my mistake, but I picked the school that does not even have holidays, lol. Expect like 7 days during new year, so I do not even have time to properly rest after all of this der-die-das-Partizip 2-ich-bin-nochmal madness, lol.
Yeah, that is the only reason why I know enough words to say at least something.
I even had to witness this. So, you probably aware about the Tegel Berlin airport, that was reworked in… Maybe 2022 or earlier into refugee camp or temporary center before sending people to different states or haim.
This place, for a lack of better words, are shithole. I was living there for a good half a year, and I managed to lost health and my mental state.
But the funny thing is — some people were writing complains to that place, after which “mysteriously” got moved to different place much faster then expected, and, after they were already moved, they started getting mails like:
“Guten Tag We read your complaining, but after that we made check and found out that you do not live in Tegel anymore, so we can not do anything Thank you and good luck.”
All things considering — it is sounds very grim, since being long gone is not yet out of picture :(
Yep, this is essentially trap. I managed to move 2 week before it would had been too late for me, so decisions were made very quickly.
The worst part is that I, as refugee, or just in general, very much fucked here without passport. Even getting phone number here is tied to passport and mine visa (in my case, 24 paragraph). Or providing proof that I can legally stay in Germany. Proof which are glued into passport.
I think my passport and ID should be okay up to 203x, but losing it seems to be more likely to happen, however. Or they could add a new law that will do something that will fuck up my life ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They already tried this with passport in ~2024 when they introduced that law, and 1 month before that law was supposed to get started — services refused to give out passports and other documents due to “error in the system”, which mysteriously had been fixed once law gain power. Cute :3
If Russia never invaded — I doubt that there would had been that many reasons to move. European Union was very close, Euro integrations, changes here and there. But after 2014 it went into shit (especially for me). It started getting better again (better as in, it it quite good, considering you had ~13% of country just taken from you), but got fucked up in 2022.
I do not have much of my home left. Not much of my family left. No friends from there. No future (it was not like I had bright future even before 2014).
It is either become part of Europe (become German citizen, or other country) or fail miserably and return back, where I will, most likely, slowly fade away, but there would not be anyone to witness that.
I can not say with 100%, but it is kind of close to this. As far I understand, you need to have certain level of official payment to apply work visa. So, for example, making 2000 or more Euro per month.
But, as far I understand, you can not simple start working in any MacDonalds and earn Visa. And if you will lose your job, you have 2 weeks to find a new one, or visa will be canceled.
And it is also important to not get yourself into job, where they can take advantage of you, knowing very well that you will lose job — you will lose visa. And as you said earlier — while you might be legally right — most likely you would not be able to do anything with that.
And there is already cases when Ukrainians are getting abused here in there, especially in payment amount and workplace safety.
When you are not citizen of a country and you want to achieve something — it is really hard.
Probably. I wouldn’t mind that though. I prefer being alone (with wifey). And feeling alien is a natural state :-)
“Complicated” is the opposite of “boring as fuck” :-) Nah, I get it. Though I’m not educated enough of all of UA/RU history, i must not convey an opinion. The human side though, i get. I’m not close enough to those handful russians to know which kind they are. I would simply assume that intelligent people of ALL countries are above those manipulative propaganda of either side AND don’t hate people just because they’re “from there”. Many of the things you said, i actually also heard being thrown towards ukranians…
Well, that actually is kinda simple. Ein Auto means “a car” (any car, not yet specified) Das Auto means “the car” (a particular car that’s known or already mentioned) Makes sense?
Good thing is, a bad german is still enough german. Most of the time at least. Since you’re surrounded by it, time will do the rest.
Fucking hell, that was close. One of the last things i would like to do is being drafted by ANY army to be wasted as a human shield for some silly overlord…
Honestly, if I’d be Zelensky, I would want to stop my people pissing off to other countries and would require passport-updates every year or they get void forever. That might make people consider twice :-(
…or some shit like that, yeah :(
I’m sorry man. I wish that you will find all that again here maybe. And things end up well.
I hear you…i really hope this will work out for you. Going back will probably be no option, as this war seems to go on forever until there is no ukranian or russian left to shoot at each other and both countries are just children, women and old people…
Yikes. And 2000 (after tax) is not achievable with McDonalds & Co. And the usually best chance like Ukranian-speaking support is probably REALLY saturated here right now :(
Totally. But not only ukranians. The moment your boss knows you’re very vulnerable or dependable, you’re fucked. Capitalism breeds the worst that humanity has to offer.
No, because I did not really learned this in English, for reasons of not understanding articles as a whole. My languages does not really makes such difference, I think. Maybe technically somewhere else, but not practically. If I am talking about “Apple”, I talk about “Apple”, not “a” or “the”, just Apple.
No… Even our books have this examples, where sentences are with “the” article.
You are not that far away from reality.
Yeah, and I am not even sure what my options are, so eh. Nicht so gut.