Learning a new language requires mastering the phonetic as well as lexical and syntactical aspects of the new language. As part of a larger study of second‐language learning, the identification of American English vowels by speakers of Russian and the identification of those speakers’ productions by native speakers of American English were explored. Four adult bilingual Russian/English speakers (two women and two men) participated in this study. The subjects performed two tasks. First, they identified ten English words (ten repetitions of each, presented in random order, of: heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, who’d, hud, heard) produced by a native speaker of American English. Then recordings were made of the subjects as they produced four repetitions each, in random order, of these ten English words. These recordings were digitized using SoundDesigner II software with an audiomedia board on a Macintosh Quadra 800 computer. Listening tapes will be prepared, using SoundDesigner II software, for identification of the Russian speakers’ vowels by native American English speakers. The results of the identification of the Russian speaker’s vowels will be compared with the identification of American English vowels by the native Russian speakers. [Work supported by St. John’s University.]