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Small Expectations | ||
Tags: Georgian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 425 of 431 06 April 2013 at 12:16am | IP Logged |
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Just found "The Squirrel" in the original:
The Squirrel Now we can talk! It's the same story that is present at the Contemporary Georgian Fiction book. As for reading without a translation, it's not possible yet. I had a look at lib.ge's stories of his and couldn't get a word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5260 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 426 of 431 25 May 2013 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
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ზდაროვა მეგობარო! გავიგე, რომ საქართველოში ხარ. როგორია?? და შენ როგორ ხარ? :)
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 427 of 431 27 May 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
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Tixhiidon, among the books you've read, is there any one that is more prolific in dialogues and/or narrating daily life activities? I really need to review this as the shortage of textbooks with dialogues doesn't allow me to learn enough.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 428 of 431 04 November 2015 at 8:53pm | IP Logged |
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გამარჯობა, TixhiiDon, დიდი ხანია არ მინახიხარ!
I'm dredging your log up from the depths of this forum because I've been thinking a lot about you and your Georgian mission lately. I feel that it is my duty to report to you that I finally visited Georgia! I was there this past long weekend, as it's so close, cheap, and easy to get to from Turkey. I went with a few fellow international students from my university here in İstanbul, and I think it's safe to say that we all feel head over heels in love with Tbilisi and Georgia in general. Everything about Georgia was simply so...pleasant. There was really nothing I disliked about it! The food was delicious (khinkali is my newfound love), as was the wine, everyone we met was friendly and helpful, and it's not exactly a bad-looking country either. :) I was also enchanted once again by the Georgian language -- seeing the beautiful Mkhedruli script everywhere and hearing Georgian spoken by real people was a surreal experience. I have somehow managed not to forget how to read the Georgian alphabet over the past few years, and was so happy to be able to sound out words on signs and to put the few Georgian words and phrases I do know to practice (გამარჯობა, გმადლობთ, ნახვამდის, დიახ, არა, ქართული, საქართველო, ღვინო, ხინკალი, თავისუფლება, ინგლისური იცით?, etc). I was also impressed by how much time and effort you must have put into learning it, and was reminded that it was because of you and your log that I first became interested in the Georgian language and visiting Georgia, which has been a dream of mine for several years now. So really, I'm thankful to you -- დიდი მადლობა! We spent two full days exploring Tbilisi, which is truly a lovely city. Perhaps the most unexpected experience was was taking the Soviet-era metro, with escalators that moved faster than any I've ever been on before and cars that felt like an underground roller-coaster. We also took a day trip to the Kakheti region to do a wine tasting tour, and did not regret that decision at all. The wines and brandies were all fabulous, and we were lucky enough to be there at the very end of the grape harvesting season, so there were still some ripe grapes left on the vines, which we got to taste -- they were the most flavorful grapes I've ever eaten, I could swear that one variety tasted like passion fruit. On our last day, we chose to do another day trip across the border into northern Armenia to visit some of the monasteries there. It was freezing cold, but also beautiful, with the fall foliage and the monasteries nestled in the mist-shrouded mountains, with a hint of frost. I already want to go back and spend more time there, and hopefully see more of the country, as well as more of Armenia. In any case, I just wanted to let you know that I've made the "pilgrimage" of sorts, and wanted to thank you for helping to bring this wonderful country, culture, and language to my awareness. :) I hope you're doing well! Have you continued to study Georgian in these past couple years? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 429 of 431 04 November 2015 at 8:57pm | IP Logged |
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Hello ellasevia, thank you for the passionate trip report!
I'm afeaid TixhiiDon doesn't show up at the forum anymore. I don't know if he's still studying Georgian, but he's just been to Georgia and ran a marathon there (I can see some updates on FB). I also plan to go there but until this day comes I keep studying and it's motivating to hear another good impression about the country. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5466 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 430 of 431 03 January 2016 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
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გამარჯობა ellasevia! ძალიან დიდი მადლობა პოსტისთვის! როგორ გამიხარდა მისი ნახვა! I
was just having one of my now very rare browsing sessions on HTLAL and was delighted to come across your post. Although I rarely visit the site now you are one of the posters I always look up when I do, as I remember being so inspired and impressed by your amazing language abilities. Anyway, I'm two months late with this reply so I hope you do come across it at some point. I know you too don't post here as often as you used to. Thanks for telling me all about your trip to Georgia. Yeah, I think everyone falls in love with the country a bit - it is, as you say, just so lovely (and of course those good-looking Georgians help, right? :) Was it your first time on a soviet-built metro? You'll have to try the one in Moscow next - the same loud, rickety, fast, deep escalators but with added socialist-realist art. It's quite a sight. Glad to hear you enjoyed the food and wine too - it's crazy that Georgian food is not wildly popular around the world. They need better PR. As for me, I'm not actively studying Georgian any more, although I often think I should probably haul Aronson off the shelf and start again right from the beginning, but I am still quite involved with the language and the country. I did some translations for a publishing house in Tbilisi last year - extracts from some soviet-era short stories and an autobiography of the Georgian actor Merab Ninidze. They were made into a booklet and used for promotional purposes during the Frankfurt book fair. If an English-language publisher had picked them up and decided to publish them I guess I would have been saddled with translating them in full, but that hasn't happened so far, unfortunately. As soon as I agreed to do them I had a massive freak-out, thinking "What have I done??", but once I got down to them they weren't so bad. Hopefully I will get some more professional translation work to do in the future. And yes, as expug (hi expug!) says, I was in Tbilisi in October, just a week or so before you, and I ran the Tbilisi Half Marathon, as well as meeting my old Georgian teacher and the publishing people. I loved it just as much as always - one day I took the Marshrutka to Sighnaghi and on the way back to Tbilisi we were driving through the Georgian countryside in twilight in this rickety old van with Georgian and Russian pop blaring over the radio, and I was possibly as happy as I have ever been :) Next on the agenda for me is a trip to Moscow in February - I majored in Russian at university, but that was a long time ago and my Russian is rusty-to-non-existent, so I'm going to hole up in the city for two weeks, walk around, buy books and DVDs, visit some friends and drink vodka with them, and try to get reacquainted with the country, people, and language. For the last month or so I've been studiously ignoring everything Georgian and trying to fill my head with Russian so I don't confuse და with и and იმიტომ რომ with потому что. Thanks again for getting in touch. It has made my day. If you want to stay in touch you can find me on FB at facebook.com/philip.price.395 In any case, good luck with all your future travels and studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Xerxes Quadrilingual Octoglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4772 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Danish*, SpanishC2* Studies: Biblical Hebrew*, French, English, German, Italian, Latin Studies: Ancient Greek, Turkish | Message 431 of 431 15 April 2017 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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Dear all,
Thank you for this wonderful blog! I would like to stress TixhiiDon's point (great novel by the way); I visited Georgia for the first time a couple of months ago to attend a Georgian wedding with a folkloric singing/dancing ensemble from my native country. I knew nothing of Georgia in advance and had no particular high/low expectations, other than the usual excitement of visiting unknown lands. But once we got there I discovered a place filled with an atmosphere which was little short from true magic. I will never forget that country. Even though many urbanized areas have this typical Sovietic rawness to them (Tbilisi notably being one of the most poluted cities on earth, right after Delhi I believe, as all the gasses get trapped inside the valley), for some arcane reason and despite my Germanic origins I found myself completely overlooking such infrastructural trifles. The people were simply as sincerely forthcoming and warm as it gets and once you get to the less urbanized areas... Man, that is like actually being in heaven. I have often been to the Alps and the Pyrenees and true, they are beautiful, but the sheer rawness of the Caucasian lakes and valleys surrounded by these massive mountain chains and their waterfalls with their century-old bridges.. It was like stepping into some sort of Lord of the Rings sequel. I had not felt so awestruck since I saw my first mountains during childhood. We drove in a mini-bus from Tbilisi to Oni, which is the capital of Racha, a part of Svaneti (with wonderful music), and (now I feel awkward for saying this...) I remember actually having tears in my eyes when I saw the spectacle of the Tkibuli reservoir under the shining mornning sun, surrounded by a chain of splendid mountains, which seemed to compete in splendor with the lake. They reminded me of pictures I have seen of Mount McKinley or Mount Cook (have never been outside of Europe myself :S). And I have not even mentioned the music, the songs, the dance, the food, the wine and chacha! And the girls... damn me. Anyways, please let me know if you have some method/books you'd recommend to learn Georgian, as I'd love to be able to at least converse in the language next time our Georgian friends come and visit Holland. Warm Regards, Abel 1 person has voted this message useful |
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