When Souren speaks in Armenian during his puppet shows his language is communicated by his and the puppets gestures and actions. To his knowledge no one understands exactly what he is saying. He must use the actions of the puppets to actually communicate. The fine inflections of language - those nuances that are so telling - are absent - think of how texting is different than speaking to someone and that is even when people "speak" the same language. When he hears the elderly men speaking his language they are understanding it, they are actually conversing with another human being , not via a puppet or other artifice. There is no barrier - there is the complete experience of the language - with all the simplicity and complexity it entails. They are not speaking - as he has been with his shows - into a void and hoping his "voice" and meaning actually- though not completely - make it through. What a relief it would be to him to be able to speak and be understood - without all the gestures and forethought and the uncertainty that he was completely understood. Regarding the nuances of native language; I am reminded of moving from my home in PA to a small IN town. Wow. Culture shock. I missed so many things from home. Yes, we all spoke English, or a version of it anyway, but the vocabulary was sometimes different, and pronunciation - "peony" was "piney" and a meatball wasn't a "real" meatball, ask for a hoagie and you get a weird look and good luck finding a pizzelle or even anyone who know what one was. English was all our native language but those simple regional differences were stark, and immediately you are tagged as being from "somewhere else - not here, and different", so my heart goes out to anyone who is not a native speaker and all alone in a foreign land.