Randi, I always hear the "happy to" part as something else, too. Never would have guessed that was the line. I assumed it was another Russian phrase.
I took a semester of Russian a few years ago. I am hardly an expert but I do know that the word for 'I' is 'Ya', spelled with that backwards R that everyone likes to misuse. This to me is clearly what he said, esp. considering the 2nd word ends in the sound 'Yoo' which is the conjugation for the 1st person. But that's about as far as I go. What I hear him say is "Ya mayoo!" I usually fill in something along the lines of "I rule!" Seeing as he just saved two people from death, "holy moly" just doesn't cut it for me.
hey hey all Just noticed this thread "Yomayo" is a curse phrase. "Yo" is short for "Yeblo" which is a form of the Russian word for "F**k". "Mayo" means "me or mine". If you listen to the commentary on the DVD, the producer and director discuss this, saying "I'm not going to translate that because my kids are going to watch this!" Unfortunately, in his excitement, our clean-cut, 17 year old ensign lept to his feat and exclaimed "F**k me!!!" The other "russian" word is "Happy to" in the subtitles. "Yes sir, happy to."
The "F**k me!!!" meaning corroborates a story I heard from a friend who saw the movie in Russia. The audience exploded with cheers and laughter after hearing Chekov's exclamation, but he had no idea what it meant. Thanks for clearing it up.
To me it sounds like "I'd be happy to" but the "happy to"-part was always very clearly understandable to me.