You Say Potato, I Say K'art'opili

Two days ago, I went to my first Georgian language conversation class. The classes are held at the Holiday Inn, which is either a long or short taxi ride from our apartment depending on traffic. Since I didn’t know which it would be, it seemed prudent to assume it would take longer. I called the taxi service an hour ahead, the driver picked me up 15 minutes later, and I arrived for the class—a full half hour early. Anybody who really knows me knows that this is unheard of!

Fortunately, my friend had told me that the class was held on the second floor. Feeling very smart armed with this knowledge, I exited the taxi and went straight up the lovely modern staircase in the middle of the lobby. I thought I would easily find my place, but instead I found a long, narrow hallway that didn’t look promising, an area that appeared to be for employees only, and an expansive lounge filled with people drinking their early afternoon espressos. Nothing in my field of vision looked like a classroom setting. Hmmm.

Apparently I was looking confused despite trying to look sophisticated and completely in control, because a server from the bar approached and asked in perfect English if I needed any help. So much for feeling smart. I explained that I was there for English class. She gave me a very quizzical look. I realized my mistake and said that I was there for Georgian class. That made much more sense to her, but she knew nothing about Georgian class. She called the hotel manager, who knew that the teacher would be arriving soon and would be holding class right in the lounge.

Back to feeling smart—I was in the right place and I was early! The server offered me a seat while I waited, and I ordered a cappuccino so I didn’t look too out of place. (Good thing I did because it came with a little chocolate treat that was a cross between a brownie and a biscotti.) I proceeded to play with my phone (yes, Facebook) and text my husband so everybody around me would think I was perfectly comfortable sitting there by myself not knowing for sure what I was doing.

After a few minutes, I saw two women walk in and had the feeling they were part of my group. My server came by, picked up my cappuccino, and moved me to their table. One was the teacher, Professor Nana Shavtvaladze, and the other was a very friendly American.

The book on the right was written by my new teacher.

My husband and I had purchased one of Nana’s books months before to help us learn Georgian, so I was very pleased to have her as our teacher. We were eventually joined by two other women—one from Hungary and one from France. It didn’t take long to figure out that the other students were on lesson 5 already. Back to feeling not so smart. Boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do!

Fortunately, all of the women in the group spoke fluent English. Our discussions were in English while we practiced and learned Georgian. Nana assured us that we would leave with at least 40 new words in our Georgian vocabulary. These all turned out to be “new” words such as interneti, iPhoni, aerop'ort'shi, t’aksi, shamp’uni. Georgian is a very old and established language, so these modern words have just been added more or less in their original forms because no word previously existed for the item or concept.

Passengers can get a t'aksi from the aerop'ort'shi into the city.

Nana told us some very interesting things about the Georgian language. Only 1% of all the words in Georgian end in a consonant. When she said that, I realized that almost every person we know has a name that ends in a vowel. The few who have first names ending in consonants go by nicknames that end in vowels. Store names generally have names that end in vowels, with a few exceptions. Another interesting tidbit is that there is no F sound in Georgian, even though there are 33 letters in the alphabet. However, F doesn’t seem to present much of a problem to Georgians when they are speaking English because it is a common sound in Russian, which many of them speak in their daily lives.

I also learned from Nana that there are some English words that simply do not exist in Georgian and vice-versa. The example she gave us was the word maintain or maintenance. The concept doesn’t exist in Georgian, therefore there is no word for it. We had noticed that most things here were only dealt with once they reached a pretty bad state of disrepair, but assumed it was a matter of not having the money to attend to the problem. Instead, it turns out it is a cultural phenomenon; problems are dealt with when absolutely necessary, not prevented beforehand.

Before we left the Holiday Inn lounge, Nana was valiantly trying to pronounce some of the Georgian letters that have very similar sounds so that we students could hear the difference. For instance ts and ts’, k and k’, p and p’. The first letter in each pair is the softer version, while the second has a sharper sound. It is very hard for non-native speakers to hear the difference, but Nana explained that the tongue points downward when you’re saying the sharper sound. Maybe eventually I’ll be able to make the sound properly, even if I can’t hear it.

Georgian words can have up to 5 consonants in a row!

Probably the best thing I learned from Nana is that many of the most difficult sounds are easier to make if you smile when saying them. This is especially helpful for the sounds made at the back of the throat, which are the hardest ones for me to say. My plan is to practice these smiling sounds when I’m walking down the street so that the Georgian people I pass will at least think I’m friendly, even if I can’t yet say a single intelligible sentence to them.