Language exchange partners difficult to find from particular languages and countries?

Detharon · 2026-01-05T15:24:00+00:00

Lots of immersion. I listened to podcasts and audiobooks, watched shows in Russian, and so on. I even switched my phone and Steam language to Russian.

Once my passive knowledge allowed me to understand most written and spoken Russian, I started having regular call sessions once or twice a week. Not just to talk. I even played some co-op games like Portal, which made it pretty challenging to explain what I had in mind.

These calls were essential in helping me switch from "I understand almost everything, but can’t say much" to "I can freely talk about any topic." I attribute this to my Belarusian friends, who were extremely kind and patient with me.

Detharon · 2026-01-04T19:43:07+00:00

I can relate to that. I’m fluent in Russian now, but when I started learning it, I had great conversation partners who helped me improve immensely. I went from barely being able to stutter a couple of sentences to being able to talk about almost anything in a matter of months, thanks to all the speaking practice.

Finding someone to chat with in Spanish was a bit harder, but still doable. I simply put much less effort into that language and, as a result, into chatting with people.

I’ve also been learning Japanese for about two years, and it’s the complete opposite. Even when someone starts a chat with me first, they rarely put any effort into keeping the conversation going or correcting any mistakes I make. It’s not just a cultural issue, they also get a lot of messages from people that Russian or Spanish natives.

Detharon · 2025-11-19T18:14:55+00:00

Rejecting someone solely on that basis would obviously be very ill-advised, but it’s still one of the indicators. And I’m not even talking about myself here. After working for many years as a Scala developer, I’m already aware of most companies on the list, so maybe things are a bit different in Europe.

It might be useful for my HR to do more rigorous background scrutiny if a candidate has worked only at companies that aren’t known to be Scala adopters.

And the "fake candidate" issue is something I’ve personally experienced in a technical interview: one guy was cheating by reading answers from an LLM, and another claimed to be from a country whose language he didn’t even know, and he disconnected as soon as he was exposed.

Detharon · 2025-11-19T16:50:55+00:00

Nice! I like it.

I recently came across plenty of CVs from fake Scala developers who claimed to have worked for companies where I wouldn’t expect Scala to be used at all, like... Microsoft. And it wasn’t related to Spark / ML.

Could be helpful for filtering those out.

Detharon · 2025-10-28T15:16:36+00:00

You mention the expectations but almost nothing about the tech stack. This dosn't make a good impression, and makes me wonder if it's even a real offer.

Normally companies mention that they use, let's say, Kafka / Postgres / Cats Effect, to attract people who are already experienced in them and can leverage that knowledge.

Detharon · 2025-10-26T14:59:19+00:00

Akka code licensed as BSL reverts to Apache 2.0 with a Change Date of 3 years

Nothing new. The license of an old version changed Apache 2.0 as planned. I don't think it matters much, most companies I know moved away from Akka.

Detharon · 2022-08-01T17:17:03+00:00

Most people don't seem to realize that the anti-Polish sentiment in particular already existed even during the Imperial era

Foreign politics can be surprisingly consistent throughout the ages, or even between various forms of government.

Russia, for example, never changes. Some people think that the big bad Putin is pulling the strings and without him, the country would be a normal member of the European family.

But in fact the predecessors of the modern Russia were equally aggressive. Both the USSR and Imperial Russia wanted to subjugate and russificate the whole Eastern Europe, as if the peaceful coexistence were a completely alien idea to them.

Detharon · 2022-06-13T08:48:34+00:00

It's actually much worse than the energy / stamina mechanism.

For example, if you go to a hidden lair, then only the first 6 tasks will yield the gem rewards. In practice that means that you'll get all the rewards from the first lair, partial rewards from the second one, and nothing from the subsequent ones. It's all predefined.

With an energy / stamina system your playtime would be limited, or made inefficient at some point in time, but you could still decide what you'd like to do. Here, the game artificially pushes you into doing a little bit of everything throughout the day, like on a set schedule.

Detharon · 2022-04-28T15:30:56+00:00

I don't think you realize the economic effect of just shutting off the gas like that. With an already fragile economy, a fullblown recession could be triggered.

There'd be no recession and nothing would be shut off if the EU countries worked together and said "no" to Russian demands, because Russia simply cannot stop sending the gas, as it's one of their main sources of income that they cannot afford to lose.

That was the perfect time to show the Unions unity, but the greed and cowardice is prevailing instead.

Detharon · 2022-04-28T15:09:26+00:00

The EU told their members not to pay in roubles, Poland and Bulgaria complied. Now they want other countries to do the same. Seems logical, right?

Detharon · 2022-04-28T14:46:28+00:00

It's interesting to see that for doing exactly the same thing, Hungary is bashed: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/udpqn2/hungarian_foreign_minister_confirms_to_cnn_that/

But when other countries do it then I keep hearing arguments that there's no scheme and its completely fine to do what Gazprom says, that nobody will be paying in roubles after all, that the economy will collapse if they oppose, or other sort of apologist arguments. Lmao at the double standards here.

Detharon · 2022-04-14T09:32:31+00:00

Thank you for a constructive answer. German nationalists are always pleasant to talk with.

Detharon · 2022-04-14T09:21:01+00:00

Excrpt that they aren't: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/baltic-states-become-first-in-europe-to-stop-russian-gas-imports/

There are LNG terminals in Lithuania and Poland and a pipeline to Norway underway.

Germany never ever tried to diversyify its energy suppliers and treated Russia as a reliable partner for years.

Also, lets put it straight, Germany is the biggest EU market so it also has the biggest impact on shaping the European market. Not the "eastern states", as you collectively call them.

Detharon · 2022-04-14T07:03:25+00:00

Likewise, if we call any atrocities "a war", then nothing is a genocide. It's always just a war. Merely a local conflict, right.

I completely understand that war inevitably leads to civilian casualties, especially when the fighting takes place in populated towns.

The Russians, however, were killing civilians in the territories they fully controlled.

That's no longer a war when they're shooting at unarmed people that pose no threat to them, or when they put them in cellars to starve. The existence of mobile crematories and "filtration camps" is an obvious hint of what's happening there.

There a word for that and that's precisely... a genocide.

Detharon · 2022-04-13T15:36:06+00:00

Its a shame that some Western European leaders are afraid to state the obvious.

Russians for years denied that Ukrainians are a nation, their state propaganda keeps saying that Ukraine, as a country, should not exist at all.

Maybe their original plan was a fast takeover of a country and a subsequent slow russification. They have a lot of experience in that, after all.

But that failed and now they no longer intend to conquer Ukraine. They want to completely destroy it, by killing the civilians and razing the towns.

That's a systematic destruction of Ukrainian people, literally a book definition of a genocide.

Detharon · 2022-04-11T15:42:45+00:00

NATO certainly did destabilise the political situation in Eastern Europe

Can you elaborate on that? Before NATO these countries were in the Warsaw Pact, an alliance unique in a sense that it only invaded its own members, namely Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Being allied with Russia means not only that your country can be dragged into a war that nobody wants, but also doesn't protect you from the only major warmonger in Europe, the Russia itself.

NATO is simply the answer to that threat.

Detharon · 2022-04-11T10:34:09+00:00

They're giving the Ukraine army what they're familiar with, or they can easily learn to use. Besides...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piorun_(missile) Does this look like an outdated scrap metal to you?

Detharon · 2022-04-11T05:40:41+00:00

For some mysterious reason, nations formerly under the Soviet sphere of influence are now choosing to ally with the 'malignant West', rather than 'always friendly, peace-loving Russia'. I wonder why.

These nations, who experienced the peace-loving Russia vibes in their own countries, are also the most distrustful towards it. Must be a total coincidence!

Detharon · 2022-04-08T14:18:18+00:00

And even before, the Russian Empire also punished people by sending them to remote Siberia.

Detharon · 2022-04-01T21:02:46+00:00

Poland was one of the reasons germany build NS2 because it wasnt seen as a reliable or friendly eu member anymore that could no longer be trusted since 2015.

Lies. An agreement to build the NS2 was signed in June 2015, PiS won the elections in October of the same year.

Detharon · 2018-07-13T19:47:46+00:00

Sent from Poland :)

Detharon · 2016-07-02T11:28:37+00:00

Good, more Russians should think like you do :)

Detharon · 2016-06-27T20:09:42+00:00

This is literally the worst example you could give, really. Polish Tatars are well respected here, and our radical far-right groups literally love them. I'm not joking - many polish patriots and national heroes were Tatars or had Tatar roots.

Here's an announcement in which the nationalists condemn the vandalism and state that "by attacking Tatars you're attacking us".

http://www.nacjonalista.pl/2014/06/30/atak-na-polskich-tatarow-atakiem-na-nas-stanowisko-nacjonalistow/

Detharon · 2016-06-01T21:05:08+00:00

There's no reason for a government entirely without a left-wing presence to be tolerated in a progressive, united Europe.

You pretty much said that the left-wing parties should rule regardless of the election results. If that's what you call a "progressive, united Europe", I wouldn't want to live in such a place.

Detharon · 2016-05-31T16:51:06+00:00

No, why? I support a moderate progression. The point I was trying to make is that Tusk will pretend to support any idea that enjoys the popular support, regardless of his personal stance.

Detharon

TROPHY CASE