I thought you guys might enjoy hearing about a few of the issues we've encountered with the English language.

First - for those of you still in the 'hunt' - there is an interesting story about British soldiers stationed in parts of Russia immediately following WW II who were trying to get attention from the beautiful Russian ladies they encountered. They didn't fully understand how to say much in Russian, but they learned that if they said - very rapidly - "Yellow Blue Vase" - it almost sounded like "I Love You" in Russian. For those interested - the transliteration would look something like 'Ya lyublu vas' - or today's more informal version 'Ya tibya lyublu'.

In the course of the past 18 months, there are a couple of REALLY interesting words that have proven to be comical. It seems that Russian speakers have a very difficult time with the short i vowel sound. It often comes out as a long e sound instead. When we first discovered this, the word in question was Snickers. As I recollect, Olya asked if I wanted to eat some "sneakers" and I told her that it didn't sound very appetizing to me --smile--.

She rarely uses the word, but we've laughed about how someone might react if she was trying to call them a "bi tch" and it comes out "beach."

And then just the other day we were discussing the fact that women are "fickle." Well, you can imagine the result of a mis-pronunciation of *that* word --smile--.

Anyone else have any gems of experience to offer??

- Dan