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Georgian?! Really?!?

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liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 6230 days ago

693 posts - 1328 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 1 of 65
18 April 2012 at 4:34am | IP Logged 
This is crazy, right?!

I was trying to decide on a new language to tackle for the next 6 week challenge in May. I was thinking of
learning something totally different than what I've attempted in the past. Something totally "out of the box" so to
speak.    I was thinking of something like Armenian or Georgian. Something with a different script and
completely unrelated to English.

After sampling both of them, I have committed myself to Georgian. Wha' huh?!!?   Why on earth would I want to
learn this obscure language of some 4 million people 1/2 way around the world from me?!    

The script, obviously is a huge draw; it is absolutely beautiful. I love it!   I have always wanted to go to Georgia
(anyone up for a ski trip?!) and while it doesn't appear that I will get there anytime soon, it seems that I can live
vicariously through Georgian internet TV. ;-)   The learning materials for Georgian seem to be slightly better than
the materials for Armenian (which are oddly non-existent!).   Georgian is a really cool-sounding language. How
many other languages are there that regularly squish 4 consonants together without vowels?   But the really cool
thing about Georgian is that there seem to be a handful of you here on the HTLAL forum that are absolutely
passionate for it! It is like an exclusive, secret club that you have going on here! It seems like a very challenging ,
but fun language.

Here is my rough plan:

1. learn the alphabet
2. learn the alphabet
3. learn the alphabet
4. One lesson of the free book2 program a day & try to commit to memory
5. The DLI 200 Hour Familiarization Course. I just ordered it from a guy on e-bay. It seems like a good
introduction.
6. Beginner's Georgian. A "teach yourself" style of introductory course.
Once I have gotten through this, I'll attack ...
7. Aronson's book "Reading Georgian" . It seems like this is a little more advanced and comprehensive than the
DLI intro.

So, 2 days into my foray and believe it or not I have already learned the alphabet! OK I can't write every letter
from rote yet but I can recognize them all in written script. You were right TD, it wasn't that hard!

I've learned the personal pronouns and how to conjugate "to be". .. and of course: გამარჯობა/gamarjoba!!
"Hello!" So until next time: naxvamdis / ნახვამდის!
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Michael K.
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5730 days ago

568 posts - 886 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 2 of 65
18 April 2012 at 4:52am | IP Logged 
Good luck with Georgian, and have fun.
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5131 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 3 of 65
18 April 2012 at 5:13am | IP Logged 
Good luck and have fun!

I've completed the Beginner's Georgian course. It's a good course. There's also Hewitt's "Georgian, A Learner's Grammar" that gets pretty deep into grammar. I'm struggling with it now.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 18 April 2012 at 5:13am

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TixhiiDon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5465 days ago

772 posts - 1474 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian
Studies: Georgian

 
 Message 4 of 65
18 April 2012 at 8:49am | IP Logged 
გაგიმარჯოს, liddytime! Good to see your log up and running. See, I told you the
alphabet was easy, didn't I? Enjoy your studies. I'm looking forward to reading about
them.
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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 5 of 65
18 April 2012 at 4:32pm | IP Logged 
I hope it lasts longer than 6 weeks!! (I mean, I do hope you achieve your goals for those 6 weeks, but then you should continue =D )
გისურვებთ წარმატებას! One more log to follow, our club is expanding!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5382 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 6 of 65
18 April 2012 at 4:40pm | IP Logged 
There is quite a lot of interest for Georgian lately.

Why?
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4689 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 7 of 65
18 April 2012 at 5:02pm | IP Logged 
Good luck and happy learning!

I'm curious as to whether any of the people learning Georgian at HTLAL are hoping/planning to reach basic fluency, or are expecting this to be more an exercise in satisfying linguistic curiosity (been there, done that, got the T-shirt).

The OP appears to be approaching it as the latter, I think, but you never know when you may fall in love with a language forever. It appears that the only person (so far) claiming to have reached fluency as a second language is an inactive member (whose profile claims fluency in an extremely diverse 21 languages)?
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 8 of 65
18 April 2012 at 5:14pm | IP Logged 
I'll just speak for myself. I have been interested in Georgian since I've known of its existence. I do plan to visit Georgian one day. What held me back from learning Georgian was the lack of good resources and native speakers or more advanced students willing to help. I've met several learners who just satisfied their linguistical curiosity and dropped it, as well as native speakers who answered some basic questions from those curious people then vanished from their forums, as they noticed people wouldn't get anywhere with their learning. Now I'm glad I'm learning a little each day but continuously.

I've satisfied my linguistical curiosity by reading linguistic books, atlas of languages. Learning a language is another thing. Memorizing words have little to do with linguistical curiosity, it is an effort that is justified when you do want to take part in that culture.


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