Could be that they are simply responding to different ways of pronouncing vowels? This is something most ESL speakers have problems with, for example. I.e. the

Could be that they are simply responding to different ways of pronouncing vowels? This is something most ESL speakers have problems with, for example. I.e. the "o" sound in "love" is somewhere between the Russian "o" and "a", and "a" sound in "land" is somewhere between the Russian "a" and "э". English speakers are attuned to such minute differences. Russian speakers are not, which is why if you ask them to pronounce the word "fax", they'll pronounce it as "fucks". :-)