First of all, thank you for your precious time.

Second, this method must be applicable to not only english, but to korean, chinese as well.

So here is what I want: there is a column A full of characters, I want to look each grid of them up in another column from another excel file — by comparing the first 4 characters, starting from the left.

If the first 4 char is same, no matter how different the rest of them are different, I want a value returned such as "yes", if the first 4 isn't the same, no matter how exactly the rest are alike, want a value returned as "no".

Example:

look up Bohemian in: "Barack" "Hamas" "Bohener", the return value should be "yes".

Your help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance, and BTW, if I did not make the issue clear, please reply and let me know.