Defintely, it’s a waste of an opportunity. But as someone also living in non-English speaking country, it’s surprisingly a lot of effort to make sure I actually expose my self to the language. If you’re work and social circles are all predominately English speaking, you need to take active steps to have meaningful exposure (and you most certainly should!)

I think it’s different now that in the past, because it’s so easy to live in a bubble and spend a lot of time communicating online. Even back in the ‘old country’ I barely spoke with strangers, beside shop interactions. I have my headphones on, listening to music, watching streaming services, and interacting with my friends and family. Now that I’m abroad, I can do pretty much the same thing, I don’t need to watch the local TV channels I can just watch YouTube, I don’t desperately need to make local friends, because I videochat and game with my buddies back home very easily.

It’s taken a couple of years here to realise that without actively pushing myself, I’m not really picking up much of the language. Now I make myself listen to talk radio in the car, and try to overhear conversations on the train, rather than existing in my normal bubble. It’s absolutely worth it, but if I’d been motivated I could have made myself consume shows, radios, etc in the target language back I the ‘old country’. And while there’s certainly more possible language partners to practice with, if they don’t emerge naturally in your social circle, then it’s not all that much easier than finding someone back home who wanted to improve their English to be my language buddy.

Tldr it’s a waste to not learn the local language, but failing to do so isn’t so much “doing something wrong” as “not actively pursuing a challenging but reward interest”.

Two years certainly could be enough, but it really depends what the environment. If OP, like many English speakers who live in France for a couple of years, was teaching English, or studying in an English speaking postgraduate course, and then socialising with a mix of people from different places, who all use English as their shared language… It can be pretty easy to miss out on a lot of immersion.

And the level of language to comfortably phone up a hospital, explain a slightly odd request and be bounced around different departments with the administration… I know plenty of native French speakers who would avoid doing that.

I’m actually surprised it’s as high as that!

I thought it was places that had circumcision that used the death grip, because of the loss of sensation? (but definitely not an expert!)

I did think that after I commented. Mais non, teaching English Linguistics in France.

Teach at a university

Lots of guys do…

Yeah, I’ve found since I started doing them slower and less carefully they seem to be more acceptable. Like, start a captcha, switch to another tab and do something, then go back and finish it. No ai’s doing that.

Tbh, almost all oven thermostats are not accurate for the actual temperature of the oven. Like, they probably are measuring 170 accuretly, but the thermostat is in the very back top corner and the temperature in the middle shelf is 15 degrees off.

People who are keen on baking, roasting meat etc where temperatures are important often recommend getting an oven thermometer so you can see the real temperature.

I guess it’d be interesting if you could measure the drop in undeclared income by seeing places that increased their turnover as electronic payments became common. Although because covid was a big driver for that in many places, and disrupted all the expectations for business, demand, costs etc it might be hard to pick apart.

I dream a lot, but how vivid they are and how much I remember them varies. Sometimes they’re very visual, weird or interesting, but often they’re vague and hard to recall. I find that if I’m not getting enough sleep I don’t dream as much, but then if I’m on holiday and catching up on sleep I dream pretty hard.

No idea why someone down voted this comment. It’s pretty much all there is to it. Where ever you’re publishing / monetising can have your real name for financial and legal aspects. But the name you put as the author of the stories / books can be whatever you like (probably not the same as someone else who publishes in your field…)

Very rarely. Which is odd now you point it out!

Works fine for me on Boost

I very much enjoyed A G L E T. Thank you.

Yeah, I think challenge can be a bit motivator for adhd folks. Once I’ve completed the main part of something, I find it really hard to care about the details, to the extent that the unfinished parts sometimes spoil the bit I had completed.

I feel like it’s the dopamine of the chase is actually what’s motivating, and challenge is a version of that. I’ll get sucked into finding some obscure game and getting an emulator working to be able to play it and all the way I’m super engaged. Then I start playing this game I was so excited about and meh, don’t care.

Maybe you could think about ways to refocus that drive? A therapist told me once that adhd people don’t get satisfaction from completing things, but are excited about new things. So, instead of feeling proud of getting into college try and immediately find the new challenge (now I want to get a prostigious internship!) if you succeed at your fitness goals, maybe you can raise the stakes see if you can beat a friend or a record or something?

In philosophy there’s a term “second order desire” which is “wanting to want” something. So, when you want ice cream it’s a first order desire, you just want it. But when you want to eat healthily, it’s often a desire for wellbeing, long-term goals, etc. Not a sudden urge for carrots.

The challenge for adhd is that second order desires aren’t that motivating. When I’m in a sporadic fitness phase (seems to hit for a few weeks every few years) then I really want to exercise (first order desire). I’d rather do exercise than play on my phone or watch TV. But the rest of the time I want to want to do exercise (to be fit) and if I had a magic wand or a pill I could take I’d prefer that to the exercise, because it’s not something I genuinely want for itself. But going for a walk somewhere beautiful, or going dancing with friends, are things I genuinely want to do, so are easy to achieve. And they have a byproduct of being some physical exercise.