Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

Over the weekend I had my first attempt to speak some Russian in a real setting. In a way this was my first real attempt not counting interactions with a tutor. (I've had to suspend my tutoring sessions because my tutor is Ukranian and her family and friends are suffering due to the invasion by Russia). I was in a bar where I happened to meet two Russian speaking Lithuanians. I jumped at the chance to say something but only managed to get a few sentences out. Although I didn't say much they were impressed by my accent. They said that English speakers usually struggle with correct pronunciation. Perhaps all the input is to thank?

  I started the month quite well, keeping up with the good work I had done in January but not surprisingly I became distracted by Putin's invasion of Ukraine. War is always a horrible thing but this time I'm experiencing it in a whole new way.  For more than a year I've been using social media to interact with Russian speakers in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in order to learn the language of regular people. I've been watching YouTubers, following Instagram accounts and have been interacting with people on iTalki. Whereas before I was learning about every day life like going to the supermarket, now I'm seeing those people post about bombings, sanctions and becoming refugees.  My tutor is Ukrainian, obviously we stopped the lessons when the invasion happened. What can you in a situation like that, will she want to keep teaching Russian? I can't blame her if she won't. So I've been spending a lot of time following the day by day developments and have not bee...