It's a Cookie!: Lost in Translation

Ilya: "It is round, hard, its like a bread. You can find it in a Starbucks."
Me: "I'm lost, is it a scone?"
Ilya: "Um, no, it is like a disc. A flat disc."
Me: "......"
Me: "Wait, a cookie!"
Ilya: "Yes, a cookie. I forgot that word!"

My 10 days in Russia was basically playing this game. It was like playing a different version of Scattergories or 20 Questions every day, at any given moment. I had to be on my toes, constantly. I became a walking thesaurus.
I don't know Russian. I don't even know how to form a sentence, except for "I don't know". I do know the alphabet at least, and can count only to 4, but beyond that it is very, very, very, minimal. I went to Russia knowing these few words:

frog .................... Лягушка
rainbow .............. Радуга
young girl ............ Девушка
grandmother ....... бабушка
grandfather ......... Дедушка
sour cream ......... сметана
piroshky ............. пирожки
cat/kitten ............ Кот, Кошка
house ................. дом
ticket .................. Билет
(informal) bye ..... Пока
hello (informal) ... Привет
thank you ........... Спасибо
yes/no ................ Да / Нет
I don't know!.......  Я не знаю!

How I was going to get by using only those words, forget it. I doubt anyone there wanted to know of frogs and rainbows (unless they wanted to know of Kermit the Frog and the Rainbow connection). At least the latter words were of more use.

Thank goodness for boyfriend's cousins hosting me while in Russia. Their English was a bit rusty when they started to speak, but by a few days time, it greatly improved. It only takes live practice. I wish I could say the same for me speaking Russian, but I unfortunately don't know it. I plan to learn one day, and I have boyfriend's family to practice with. There were some words that they didn't understand or would get confused with other similar sounding words. I had to annunciate every word when speaking English. When my "thesaurus" failed, or when we came at a dead end trying to explain a word, Sasha would turn to his iPhone and speak the word to translate it; Ilya would turn to his Russian-English dictionary, as I would later on use, too.

Here are some words that I had to describe really, really, well:
blanket, waterproof, beets, pickle, dessert, backpack (that word was a matter of dissecting the compound word), allowed (which was being confused with "out loud"), flour (which was being confused with "flower").

But when it came to ordering food at a cafe or restaurant, it would be a matter of pointing to a menu item. At least Sasha or Ilya would translate the menu beforehand, and sometimes just order for me. I would try and sound out the word, and sometimes I would know what I was reading. Sometimes. Before leaving for Russia, boyfriend's mother told me not to worry too much about the language barrier because most of the younger crowd knows English. False! They might "know" it, but they can't speak it. Start flexing and stretching those fingers to point at things if you plan on visiting.

After leaving Russia, I felt that I started to speak in broken English because I got used to listening, and even speaking, in a very simplified manner. I have to admit I loved being stuck in that language barrier.