The trouble with vowels

If the language we learned first doesn't discriminate between 2 vowels that exist separately in another language, it can lead to some awkward mispronunciations. The difference between the long e sound and the short i sound is hard for a lot of non-native English speakers. I have more than one latino friend who has told me about their weekend at the bitch. And my proper and well-educated professor from Korea always made me giggle inside each time she told us to take out a shit of paper.

For me, there's very little difference in sound between e and ei in Spanish. So these 2 words, for example, sound almost identical to me: peine=comb pene=penis

The other day, I was reading aloud a story to my first and second graders. In the story, the man brings home a comb to give to his wife as a gift. When I read that, I got some startled looks. "A WHAT?!" asked one little girl. "One of these" I answered, chagrined, pointing to the picture. After that, any time the word comb appeared in the story, I substituted the word brush.

Did I really say what I think I did? Guess what word I'm cutting out of my vocabulary in Spanish.