Is it difficult to learn Georgian? -good-news and bad-news!

You've probably heard that Georgian is very difficult to learn.

If you ask me, my answer is “it depends…”

For example, it depends on other languages that you already know. Either your mother-tongue or languages that you acquired later. Knowing more languages will always help you with learning new ones because you are going to identify similar patterns, and then map them to those you've already encountered.

Since most people nowadays are bilingual, I assume you are as well. Therefore, you are smart enough already to learn and speak in Georgian! 

That being said, knowing some languages will help you more than others.

For example, if you already knew Azeri, it would be easier for you to pronounce Georgian words. Azeri and Georgian have many letters (consonants) in common.

If you already know Persian (Farsi), Turkish or Armenian, you are familiar with the optative tense. This tense (or as some may refer it to as mood) is non-existent in English. Therefore, English speakers may have a hard time understanding these tenses in Georgian.

So, carrying on the old tradition of giving good news/bad news,  I will be giving you a general idea of what to expect to be easy, or hard…

Good News

There are things that make learning a language very difficult. The good news is that Georgian may save you from some of those hurdles that you might face while learning German or French…

• No sex!

In Georgian, there is no “he” or “she”. We will be using only one word for third person pronouns.

Also, there is no gender assigned to words. For example, in Arabic, sun is considered male, but moon is female, so you have to use the correct article, pronoun and verb with it.

In German, the opposite is true… so go figure!

And there are thousands and thousands of nouns in a language. Learning the gender for all of them is a headache.

Not in Georgian though! No need to worry about that.

• “Word Order” Doesn’t matter

In some languages, the word order in a sentence is very important. It can change the meaning of sentences drastically.

Not in Georgian, though. It may change what you emphasize subtly, but nothing to worry about in general.

• Easy to understand while listening

Although reading Georgian may be intimidating to some (it shouldn’t be!), listening to it is very easy.

Once you know how to pronounce a Georgian word, you pick up on when someone uses it, in the middle of a sentence.

You may say that it is natural to identify a word when you know it, but it is not! When I was learning English, I had a problem with identifying words that I already knew when they were used by native speakers.

The main reason for this is the intonation and stress. For example, in the following word, I have colored the part of the word that must be stressed in English:

Under

Understand

Understandability

This variation on where stress is placed makes it harder to understand it, especially in long sentences.

In other words, every language has a musical tone of its own. If your ear is not tuned to it, you will miss the words.

But in Georgian, stress is mildly placed on the first syllable, all the time. Therefore, once you learn a word, you recognize that word in all contexts!

• Reading Georgian is actually easy!

When you encountered Georgian alphabet for the first time, you were probably intimidated. It would have seemed strange. The letters have no resemblance to Latin characters.

But consider this: there is no lower-case or upper-case in Georgian! You will be learning only one set of characters. And it's not like Chinese! Only 33 characters to learn.

Also in Georgian, you write exactly as you pronounce. It is not like English or French where you have to look up the pronunciation of a word.

I can bet anyone that the Georgian alphabet could be mastered in 7 days, each day practicing for half hour at max!

Bad news

The most horrifying part of learning Georgian, is conjugation stuff!

Conjugation /NOUN
The variation of the form of a verb in an inflected language such as Latin, by which the voice, mood, tense, number, and person are identified.

Oxford Dictionary

Conjugation means all verbs, have pronouns attached to them. While in English pronouns are separate (meaning: I, you, he, she, it, we, and they)

See the table below for comparison, I have highlighted the pronouns:

Difficult to understand already?

No worries! I have taken a picture of myself when I first learned about Georgian conjugation. This tells all:

But you can rest assured that you will not have any problem learning Georgian if you use my method. I will ease you into the language. I’ll also teach you how to speak without thinking about it!

If you need to learn Georgian at an academic level, my course will not be enough. But if you want to master the language fast and be confident in communication, I can guarantee your success.

And don’t take my word for it. Just try my free lessons. Sign up below, and you will receive 5 free audio lessons that will jump start your learning.

So… Keep Calm and Carry On Learning Georgian!

Mehdi

PS. What’s your take on this subject? What are your challenges learning Georgian?

Leave them below in comments section.