How do you discuss a course on public administration and management in Russian when one word -upravleniye- is used for both administration and management? How do you check methods of assessment when they are so totally different that there are no equivalent words for them? Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has been a mushrooming of East-West educational partnerships. It is obviously important to be rigorous when validating a foreign course to which you are lending the name of your institution. But what is not always realized when working through an interpreter is the difficulties of cultural equivalence in language and in fact. Education is in fact one of the most culturally specific of all areas of translation. The system of education is formed by and forms different societies. This paper looks at linguistic/cultural problem areas in East-West educational discussions and the reasons and sources of the cultural confusions.