rahdonit Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6605 days ago 50 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English, German
| Message 1 of 19 12 January 2011 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
As usual at the beginning of each new year, this year I also made a resolution to pack each day of the coming year with deeds of glory and action.
I am not sure if learning Georgian falls into the category of glorious deeds but maintaining this log certainly does.
Why Georgian?
I have no practical reasons for learning Georgian, actually the whole undertaking is solely for my own pleasure but I would like also to measure the process and in this respect I regard it as a practical experiment.
So far I’ve been dealing with languages from Germanic, Romance and Slavic families and I felt a need to taste something absolutely new, a language where I would find no cognates, no familiar grammar patterns, preferably a language with an unknown script. The process of elimination brought me to Georgian, I looked around and found that I liked practically everything about the language – the script, the sound, a big amount of literature written in the language, the idea of visiting Georgia one day when I am comfortable with the language is also very alluring.
Why write this log?
No denying, it will be an additional motivator, also I would like to keep record of how many hours I put into each particular learning activity and see what I achieve after 100 hours, 200 hours etc of input (some logs in this forum prompted me to consider doing it, thank you, Oasis88!) and finally see what I can achieve in a year.
In the course of the journey I also hope to give some information on the language and on the experience that I gather along the way, that other people might find useful.
What I want to achieve.
I would like to be able to communicate freely with native speakers of Georgian (I hope Skype can help as there are not a lot of Georgians around) and be able to read articles online, participate in discussions in forums and read books in Georgian. I had to look up for a more scientific definition and I think what I want to achieve is B2 level.
Where am I now?
I am not starting now from scratch, I have been learning Georgian on and off for the last two months. In my next post I would like to give my estimation of what I can do now, what materials I use and how I plan to proceed further.
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shawns Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5285 days ago 20 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Georgian
| Message 2 of 19 12 January 2011 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
I'm also learning Georgian. I have made Anki flash cards for almost all of the vocabulary from Aronson's Georgian: A
Reading Grammar. If there is interest, I could share those on Anki's site.
Edited by shawns on 12 January 2011 at 10:14pm
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nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French
| Message 3 of 19 12 January 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged |
Best of luck with your Georgian this year. I will be following your log with interest.
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TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5455 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian
| Message 4 of 19 12 January 2011 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
So nice to finally have another Georgian log on here! I've been studying the language
for just over a year and I'm enjoying it a lot.
I look forward to reading about your progress! What materials are you using?
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rahdonit Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6605 days ago 50 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English, German
| Message 5 of 19 13 January 2011 at 7:39pm | IP Logged |
Shawns, thanks for the offer. I have never used Anki or any other flashcard programs but I would not refuse to experiment with it. Do you use separate words as flashcards or also phrases and sentences?
Nogoodnik, thanks for your wishes!
TixhiiDon, actually I was reading your log when figuring out what language to choose. And well, your log was one of the many things that prompted me to choose Georgian! Please keep going on!
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rahdonit Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6605 days ago 50 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English, German
| Message 6 of 19 13 January 2011 at 8:31pm | IP Logged |
I've been learning Georgian for about two months already but really in a very relaxed manner and allowing myself several days of break which is of course no good for language learning.
I have been using and plan to use further as my main learning materials two books: Beginner's Georgian by Dodona Kiziria (at lesson 3 now, out 13) and Einfuerung in die Georgische Sprache by Kita Tschenkeli (at lesson 7 now, out of 48).
The choice of learning materials largely depends on your learning style. My ideal combination always was a solid grammar-centered textbook of the old school (for me these were always University textbooks from the Soviet times) and an Assimil-like course (or Assimil itself) with a lot of dialogues on interesting topics and with a lot of useful expressions ready to be used in everyday life.
When choosing materials for learning Georgian I considered several Russian based textbooks, but none of them met my expectations and finally I decided on a combination of Kiziria and Tschenkeli.
Both of the books are great in their own way. The best thing about "Beginner's Georgian" is the texts and their recordings. They are really excellent, I like also that each dialogue is recorded twice - once with pauses for repetition and for the second time at a normal speed. I really feel sorry that there are only 13 lessons in the book and not 90-100 lessons like in Assimil books. The grammar explanations are also good but somewhat simplified and the downside of having lovely dialogues from the very start is that you do not know all grammar features that you encounter in the texts. Kiziria solves this problem by putting such phrases into “idiomatic expressions” section or translating these words in the form in which they are used in the text without going into details how it is formed.
I think it is a wise decision and it is very important that the language of the dialogues does not get emasculated.
“Einfuehrung in die Georgische Sprache” consists of two volumes each of them containing 48 lessons, the first volume containing explanations of grammar rules and the second volume containing corresponding grammar exercises and a list of new words. The grammar is explained with all finest details and deviations from the rules (including even the forms of the old Georgian). Despite being really very thorough, it is also very logical, practical and clear.
Lessons in volume II consist of a new vocabulary list, sentences in Georgian featuring the grammar explained in the corresponding lesson of volume I and German translations of the Georgian sentences (in normal German and in difficult cases also a word for word translation is provided).
My normal routine with Tschenkeli is following:
1) Read the explanations in volume I
2) Learn the vocabulary of the corresponding lesson in volume II
3) Read the Georgian sentences making sure that I understand all the words and all grammar phenomena that I encounter
4) Read German sentences and make oral reverse translations into Georgian
5) Scriptorium of the Georgian text
I stay with the same lesson until I make sure that I have a good command of the grammar and know all the new words.
I try to balance the two sources in the following way – the main focus is on the “Einfuehrung in die Georgische Sprache”, I see that I need 4-5 hours (or 4-5 days respectively) for one lesson and when things get more complicated maybe I might need even more time. Moving 3 lessons ahead with Tschenkeli I move only 1 lesson ahead with Kiziria, that is I deliberately slow down my learning process with “Beginner's Georgian”. It has an advantage that I know the dialogues by heart just by mere numerous repetition (and the dialogues are very good). Also having learnt ahead more grammar from “Einfuehrung in die Georgische Sprache” I hope to be able to understand many things that are classified as idiomatic expression in “Beginner's Georgian” also from the grammatical point of view (I hate not being able to do it)
I will proceed with this method but I might consider some changes if I feel it necessary.
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sjheiss Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5675 days ago 100 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, Basque
| Message 7 of 19 14 January 2011 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
Good luck and have fun with Georgian. :D It's verbs are a bitch, but it's a beautiful language.
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snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5716 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian
| Message 8 of 19 14 January 2011 at 5:45am | IP Logged |
Awesome! I've wanted to learn this language for some time, although right now I am focusing my energy on improving my Russian. It's great that you're a native speaker of Russian, because that will make it easier (since most materials are in Russian). Where are you in Ukraine? If you're in Eastern Ukraine, the Caucasus isn't too far from you, it's closer than if you were living in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Perhaps if you get very comfortable in Georgian, you could make a visit (at least to Sochi/Adler; I'm not sure if going to Abkhazia/Georgia themselves would be too much of a risk).
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