‘Medvedev’ seems to be the hardest word for Hillary
Published 07 March, 2009, 02:32
Hillary Clinton has made another high-profile gaffe with her attempts to pronounce the name of Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.
She was embarrassed last year at a presidential debate when she struggled to name the favorite to follow Putin as Russian President and in the end said: “Medvedveda, whatever”.
And it looked like déjà vu at the media conference after her first official meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday. The U.S. Secretary of State said Barack Obama is looking forward to discussing a range of important issues with “President Meddev… Medevev”.
She didn’t say “whatever” this time, however, instead laughing and continuing her speech without trying to pronounce the Russian head of state’s name correctly.
The talks in Geneva kicked off with another American blooper. Clinton gave her counterpart a present – a box with a large red button and an inscription in Russian as a symbolic gesture.
But instead of saying 'reset' as intended, a mistake meant the inscription translated as 'overload'.
When Lavrov pointed out the error Clinton promised not to ‘overload’ U.S.-Russia relations.
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