Some folks in Russia have an interesting way to pronounce the English "tech", which can be transcribed as "tetsch". "Tekh tree" becomes "tetsch tree", "tekhies" become "tetschies", so on. Hearing that for the first time got me confused as a small-time game modmaker and I discussed our current assignment. Knowing how the thing's pronounced, it took me a minute to figure it out.

Most of it comes down to how schools in Russia operate. I live and have attended school in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city and have seen how those who mispronounce the word get it into their heads. Here, most teachers do their best to care about teaching students new stuff, but both sides have already been disenchanted by the living they've been given, and as such, don't put in any good effort.

Some, the more conscious teachers, got the subject drilled into our heads as the only way for most of their students to remember something after we leave school; the rest simply didn't care enough - which, in the school I was in, included the English teacher. When some of the dimmer students needed their assignment done, I was the guy the came to; since the teacher didn't care, I haven't seen the reason to either, so this is how I made my first money.

What the English lessons got down to was either talking about something with the teacher - an old woman who seemed to be not entirely in touch with the world - or doing whole two reading exercises until the bell rang. Needless to say, English didn't get much attention from most of the students, including me. They were considered nothing more than a time to relax, some of the easier classes where nobody even thought of working; German classes were another story, and in the retrospect, I would have taken it instead: boy, would I have learned something.

With such an education - a common element to everybody who mispronounces the titular word - only most simple concepts get seated into the their heads: that there are auxilary verbs, that third person pronouns add an "s" to the verb and that "ch" is read like "tsch". With no other source of information on the subject and barely anything to shake the foundation of their knowledge - Russians of my generation are not particularly outspoken - there's no surpise people get into their heads the weird word of "tetsch". It's particularly prominent in the Dota 2 community, where Russian players are adamant to listen when I tell them that their pronounciation is incorrect.

Such adamance follows Russian people in the most fields they go and seems to react to the authority of the person correcting: the more they have it, the more the adamance toughens. Magic or sufficiently advanced science, I know not.

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I figured I'd start telling people about the country I've lived my life in. People around the world - especially the first world - have caught a bad case of ignorance when it comes to Russia: all they imagine of the country is the Hollywood stamps based solely on stereotypes. It's most appaling when the whole world knows what goes on in the United States of America, who started this epidemic in the first place, using their powerful propaganda mechanism to undermine the image of their enemy, the Soviet Union, at one time.

I'm sure there are some more Russian natives on Hubski. If you have stories to tell about something foreigners aren't likely to see in Russia on their first visit (or until they start living here), do tell it using hashtag #russiabynatives - or send it to me if you feel you aren't eloquient enough, and I'll do my best to shed some light onto it.