The Secretary and the Reset Button (A case for promoting U.S. Russian language study)

[Donna Seifer]

1. In August 1990 I heard Condi Rice say a few words in Russian in welcoming
Anatoly Sobchak and wife Ludmila Narusova to the White House.  Condi was
then an aide to Bush '41 and was about to give the newly elected mayor of
Leningrad a tour. As an overextended volunteer escort interpreter, I thought
I might get a break, but when Sobchak replied to her in Russian, she turned
to me for interpretation and thus the tour began.

Donna Seifer



On 3/7/09 7:28 AM, "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU> wrote:

> 1. Has anyone heard Condi Rice say even a word in Russian?
> 
> 2. The article that is having so much fun with the blunder (and I
> thought those were the thing of the past, Carter's past, when his
> interpreter in Poland confused different word of 'love'), so this
> article has its own mistake: поместила на первой странице фото красной
> кнопкой,
> 
> Alina Israeli
> 
> Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
>> Rolf Hellebust wrote:
>> 
>>> Well, she should've checked with Condi Rice -- though this is just a
>>> typo for "perezagruzka".
>> 
>> I would've been sorely tempted by "сброс," and it seems I wasn't the
>> only one:
>> <http://www.mignews.com/news/society/world/070309_103801_28470.html>
>> 
>> But what really amazes me -- see the photo -- is that someone at State
>> thought Russian was written with the Roman alphabet. How ignorant is
>> that!?
>> 
>> They were definitely overcharged for this translation.
>> 
> 
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