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Georgian Notes, Doubts and Tips TAC 2013

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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 737 of 758
20 August 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged 
Yes, it is this one. Then I'll be out of videos again :)

Btw, I just watched the first YT video of შუა ქალაქში. It does help a lot, but I'd rather
follow the whole series once I could understand it.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 738 of 758
23 August 2013 at 10:16pm | IP Logged 
It is a sunny fake winter afternoon in Brazil. The sun is shining, though I can
foresee some clouds. We are approaching the sunset, birds are not singing but cars are
not honking yet either. People are getting ready to get back to their hours and...I GOT
A NEW GEORGIAN TEXTBOOK!!!

This one:

Kraveishvili, M. & Nakhutsrishvili, G. (1972), Teach Yourself Georgian for English
Speaking Georgians, Tbilisi: The Georgian Society for Cultural Relations with
Compatriots Abroad

It is what Beginner's Georgian fails to be, and beyond. Short lessons, 40 of them.
Quite a start for anyone's Georgian, despite its unfortunate lack of audio. I don't
know about myself, though. I am a bit over most of the content and my schedule is just
fine with ice.ge 's lessons, which pushed my knowledge harder, so maybe I'll give it a
go only after I'm done with Tschenkéli's books. All in all, getting this book made me
realize I'm really into a stage at which I can benefit more from native material, and
made me forget about buying expensive books such as Basic Georgian. Maybe I'd still
like to get Hewitt's reader, though.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 739 of 758
26 August 2013 at 10:01pm | IP Logged 
A friend who helped me find the nice book mentioned above wants to start Georgian on
his own, so I thought I could write him a path to follow with the materials available.

WORK IN PROGRESS

1.Absolute Beginner

a) Beginner's Georgian - when things start to get better, the book is unfortunately
over. It consists of only 13 lessons. You get a nice background on the most useful
texts but don't expect to understand an ordinary Georgian newspaper sentence after
that, because you'll still lack the main grammar.
b) book2 - Yeah, I know the sentences are the same for all languages, but Georgian is a
minor language when it comes to resources, so it is worth using it despite some
sentences having a few mistakes or sounding unnatural. And it has audio!
c) Teach Yourself Georgian for English-speaking Georgians - this book will just fill in
the gap and help you make a transition to books that rely too heavily on grammar (like
Aronson's or Hewitt's). It has short lessons and you'll improve your vocabulary while
setting the foundation for grammar that you couldn't find on Kiziria's Beginner's
Georgian
d) Lehrbuch der Georgische Sprachen - I find it a bit difficulty to go from Kiziria's
right into this one, so that's when the previous one came in handy. You may skip LGS if
you don't know German or if you think the previous TYG just gave you what you needed
for understanding the Georgian sentence.
e) Nikolaioshvili's Intensive Course - I only had access to the Russian version. You
may skip this one, too, if you feel comfortable enough. The advantage it has is that it
has audio and important dialogues covering a wide range of subjects.


2. The grammar you need so you can start with texts

I suggest the learner to start those textbooks that focus on grammar then after a few
weeks start the intermediate textbooks in parallel, as you will get rather bookish or
literary language from these grammar-oriented textbooks below.

f) Hewitt's Georgian - A Learner's Grammar - don't worry abou criticisms based on rival
authors you may find online. The book is pretty much useful in spite of some
difficulties it could have avoided, like the lack of translation for the dialogues. You
will still be in touch with lively language while delving into more complicated
grammar. Don't worry if you can't understand grammar after this and the other
textbooks, it may be only after reading on the same topic from different points of view
by this, the previous and the other authors that the Georgian grammar will start to
make sense.
g) Einführung in die Georgische Sprachen - by Kita Tschenkéli. Simply the best
grammar+textbook, one more reason you should learn Georgian from German. All the
gibberish from Hewitt's and Aronson's grammars (read below) start to make sense after
reading the efficient explanations from this author. His German explanations on
Georgian sound easier to understand than Aronson's or Hewitt's in English, and I can
barely read German with a dictionary. Grammar knowledge is hierarchized, you first
understand what a tense is supposed to mean, its usages and only then you delve into
exceptions.
h) Aronson's Georgian a Reading Grammar - it is the most well-known and comprehensive
grammar for English-speakers, but it is far from being didactical. It teaches you hgow
to turn a verb into passive before you can use the past. Exceptions all come prior to
any explanation on usage. Yet it is a reference work and it has audio made by the
Indiana university.

3. Intermediate resources - right before (or while) you can get into native materials

My learning curve had to be much more steep because I didn't have enough good resources
for making the transition from A1 to A2 and from A2 to B1. Just like the book listed
under c) will make the former transition less traumatic, so will the website ice.ge
work for the latter. Like I said, you can start these books while still dealing with
the grammar resources and you can start native materials while still working on these
books.

i) Georgian newspaper reader - It is graded and it has audio. When I tried it, I still
hadn't learned the necessary grammar in the competent way as taught at Tschenkéli's
book, nor did I have the necessary vocabulary. So, I retained little, but if you come
to it with a solid background you're likely to finish it completely comfortable with
the news.
j) Georgian language and culture: a continuing course. While the dialogues written by
Dodona Kiziria are very appropriate and the extended grammar explanations (when
compared to Aronson's grammar) provide good insights, nearly all of the native literary
excerpts are either too archaic or too regional (most of the cases, both) and the
stories themselves are not much appealing. There is good contemporary Georgian fiction
out there, so maybe you can use just the dialogue and the grammar from this book and
save the excerpts for when you are getting ready for reading the classics.
k) Monolingual course from ice.ge - If there is anything that comes close to that
famous French series, it is the course. The course is entirely monolingual, with only
some grammar explanations and a glossary in Armenian or Azeri. Dialogues are not
transcribed, so expect to actually miss the sentences you can't hear of find again in
the exercises. The reading section helps you feel assured to have learned the main
vocabulary of this lesson, though. You may even do this course earlier, since the
entire A1 level will seem easy if you have consistenly been through all of the above.

This is a start. I may have forgotten other materials I had used, but maybe I used
these just for reinforcing what I couldn't retain due to going too superficially
through the ones mentioned above.
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 740 of 758
26 August 2013 at 11:21pm | IP Logged 
This გასეირნება ყარაბაღში sounds like a L'Auberge Espagnole from the Caucasus, with war.
Georgian, Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian all can be heard. Armenian sounds the most
alien to my ears, of course, as Azeri does sound Turkic. I can understand better the
Russian spoken between the Azeris and the Georgians than the Georgian spoken between
natives. Maybe it's the foreign accent that makes things pronounced more slowly. It
starts to get interesting, anyway. I hope I start to get more from the Georgian
dialogues.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 741 of 758
27 August 2013 at 8:54pm | IP Logged 
Currently at Lesson 68 at ice.ge . Only three lessons to finish level A2. Then lessons
become longer again at level B1. I don't understand why that, I think A2 lessons were
better in size and format. I hope I can manage it, anyway, as I will finish the textbook
at Tschenkéki's work in about 1 month and a half.

გასეირნება ყარაბაღში has worked more as Russian practice than Georgian. There's nothing
wrong with that: I did need to find Russian films, and the Russian in there isn't that
hard to understand and associate with the English subtitles. Funny how the Georgian
accent with a grave voice is so remarkable.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 742 of 758
05 September 2013 at 9:21pm | IP Logged 
I think the reason I can't understand much from the Georgian spoken at გასეირნება ყარაბაღში
is because the sound quality is not that good! So, the background noise gets noisier. I'm
not sure how much I'm learning from this film but I'll keep doing it for the lack of
something better. Then I'll have to watch something with no subtitles and see how much I
can get.

Currently at lesson 75 of ice.ge . This course can bring someone to basic fluency if they
work hard and considering they already have a sufficient background not to feel
overwhelmed by so much Georgian. The level claimed is B1 and even though I'm far from B1,
I think if someone overlearns, learns extensively the previous lessons they will indeed
be at a comfortable B1 with all that vocabulary.
1 person has voted this message useful



prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
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 Message 743 of 758
08 September 2013 at 9:22pm | IP Logged 
Almost 750 posts - and all about Georgian - incredible!
Due to my planned flight to Georgia I want to learn some basics, so it's good NOT to be alone here.

Btw. [I guess you've written about it a bit, but well, 93 pages is a little to much for me at the moment] - what was your inspiration to start a journey with this language?
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 744 of 758
09 September 2013 at 7:24pm | IP Logged 
Well I did answer that question a few times, but I don't remember doing this in this
specific thread =D Here it goes:


I started to become interested in Georgian after reading about its unique grammar in a
tiny language family. Then I checked the alphabet and liked it. I noticed that Georgian
was a sort of a bridge between West and East, found out about Georgians' hospitality
and read about Georgian cuisine and the architecture that also looks very interesting.
Now I must say most of the linguistic curiosity is over, but I am still interested in
the culture. So, as an advice for other learners: no matter if you start it out of
linguistic curiosity, be sure to find out more interesting aspects in the culture,
because what seems unique in terms of grammar will become a habit later on, when you'll
have understood more or less how it works but will still have a lot to memorize. All
that is left to keep you interested is the culture itself.


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