Language Learning

I think it’s time I talked a little about the Georgian language. You can find most of the information you’re looking for on Wikipedia. So, I will only give you a basic description of Georgian and then go into how difficult this language is to truly master and learn. Georgian is a Caucasus based language and is one of main language families. Even the Romans discussed how incomprehensible the Georgian language was. The written language came about with the spread of Christianity in the 4^th century. The Armenians also like to make fun of Georgian and say it looks like spaghetti.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the alphabet and how we transliterate it.

ღ - gh

ჯ - j

უ - u

კ - k

ე - e

ნ - n

გ - g

შ - sh

წ - tz

ზ - z

ხ - kh

ც - ts

ფ - p

ძ - dz

ვ - v

თ - t

ა - a

პ - p

რ - r

ო - o

ლ - l

დ - d

ჟ - zh

ჭ - tch

ჩ - ch

ყ - k’ (it’s in the throat)

ს - s

მ - m

ი - i

ტ - t’

ქ - k

ბ - b

ჰ - h

So, if I wrote გამარჯობა what would the transliterated version of that be? Use the above key. Now try: მე ვარ ტომი. Georgian is REALLY hard and really difficult to pick up with all the different forms verbs can take. I won’t go in too much, but Georgian really is one of the hardest languages in the world.

On top of Georgian I am trying to learn Russian. When I came to Georgia one of my goals was to learn Georgian and Russian. I completely underestimated how hard learning a language is. At this point Georgian takes up most of my time, but I’m also learning a little Russian. At this point I can read the words, but I don’t understand most of them.

In the end I find learning a language much harder than I ever thought it would be. I never put my dues in at the beginning either. So now I’m paying for it now. I still have 9 or 10 months left to get a lot better at it.

It’s late and I’m tired. Goodnight.