As I was watching Humpty Dumpty I got to thinking about Luka's comment to Carol about how she looked great and more like a "lubenska" then a pumpkin. Carol said, "What is that?", but didn't she speak Russian? She did in the 1st season with the little AIDS girl Tatiana. Wouldn't Croatian and Russian be similar in that they are both Slavic? I would think that she would be able to understand at least what he was saying. Maybe the writers forgot that Carol caould speak Russian.

-- Rachel (rachelrr@ivillage.com), April 21, 2000

Answers

She almost seemed like she was running that word through her head trying to come up with a meaning. So maybe she does speak a little, but is not fluent and was trying to place that word!?

-- amanda (amanda.rehm@home.com), April 21, 2000.

Carol DOES speak Russian. I would think that Russian and Croatian would be a little bit similar but remember they ARE two differant languages. Even various forms of English are sometimes hard for other English speakers to understand.

-- Leanne (lucy_redrat@nycmail.com), April 21, 2000.

Well, if you recall, Carol was nowhere near fluent in Russian. She could only string together a few sentences. Not to mention Russian and Croatian are 2 different languages and I imagine they are quite different, whether there are similiarities or not. Italian and Spanish are similiar and some Japanese words are the same as Chinese ones, yet if you spoke one language to someone who spoke the other, they certainly wouldn't be able to understand.

-- random person (ewwhatevr@aol.com), April 21, 2000.

Random Person is right, Carol speaks Russian but not fluently. I believe she said she speaks "ten words" of it. Though whoever said she seemed to be running the word through her head, I caught that too. It may have sounded fairly familiar to her, since I'm sure there are similarities between the two languages, and hoped maybe she could place it but was unable to.

-- Arianne (CarolRossSusanGreene@yahoo.com), April 21, 2000.

I just kind of thought that scene was showing Carol repeating the word over to see if she liked the sound of it, whether it sounded good or bad to her. I thought Carol was very cute in this show.

-- Elaine (mrsclooney78@hotmail.com), April 21, 2000.

I'd like to know what the word means because, when Luka wouldn't translate, I thought he'd decided it might be unflattering and didn't want to instead of couldn't. Anyone know? Everyone above is right, Carol's Russian was horrible. Regarding the languages being similar, there's a lot of words in the English language that have different meanings, both slang and otherwise, in other English-speaking countries.

-- Diana (dilynne@juno.com), April 22, 2000.

He called her a watermelon.

-- random person (ewwhatevr@aol.com), April 22, 2000.

Thanks, Random Person...he was probably right to keep it to himself. LOL.

-- Diana (dilynne@juno.com), April 22, 2000.

You are right, Diana. Carol's Russian is HORRIBLE! Lubenica is watermelon in Croatian. Chances are Luka may not know Russian at all. The Croatians, historically, have resisted ties with Russia and, therefore, have not fallen victim to Russification like ohter countries in the former Eastern Bloc. But seriously, Russians are great guys. And so is Luka.

-- joan8018 (joan8018@my-deja.com), December 19, 2000.