` Hello, all! I have now been in Batumi, Georgia for two weeks and have been really enjoying learning about Georgian culture so far! I have been living with a Georgian family of six, my host mom, Natia, her husband, her mother and father, and her two sons. They mostly speak Georgian unless they are talking to me, or unless my host mom and grandma are talking around me. As well, they all speak Russian as a second language, except for her two sons who know a little Russian but speak more English, which has been nice for me to hear English and also to be able to communicate a little more clearly every so often. I had done some research before I got here, which explained that most Georgians over the age of forty speak Russian, and that most of the younger people here are learning English in school, so it has been interesting to see that evidenced through my host family and also when talking to older vs. younger people out on the streets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One important phrase I have learned so far is the verb \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0442\u044c,\u201d which means \u201cto eat,\u201d spoken as \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0435\u0448\u044c\u201d or \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0439\u201d to me, from my host mom and grandma. When I first arrived I had never heard this verb before, as in class we learned \u201cto eat\u201d as \u201c\u0435\u0441\u0442\u044c,\u201d but I quickly figured it out! I eventually looked up \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0439\u201d and saw it translated as \u201cto eat,\u201d and it was cool to learn that this is the more colloquial way of talking about eating, and in fact, I have not heard \u201c\u0435\u0441\u0442\u044c,\u201d since I\u2019ve been here. I haven\u2019t really noticed any barriers between who uses this verb as it\u2019s been said to me and my host brothers, and to my host mom, from the grandma and vice versa. I asked my Russian teacher (who is from Russia) what the difference is, and she said \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0442\u044c\u201d is less formal, and thus, more colloquial. Another difference in daily speech that I\u2019ve learned here vs. what I learned in class at Notre Dame, is that it is much more common to describe liking something, or to be asked if you like something as, \u201c\u0442\u0435\u0431\u0435 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u0441\u044f?\u201d instead of \u201c\u0442\u044b \u043b\u044e\u0431\u0438\u0448\u044c?\u201d In class, we used the verb \u201c\u043b\u044e\u0431\u0438\u0442\u044c\u201d much more than \u201c\u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f,\u201d and from my experiences here so far, it simply seems that \u201c\u043b\u044e\u0431\u0438\u0442\u044c\u201d is a little more intense than \u201cto like,\u201d closer to \u201cto love,\u201d and so \u201c\u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f\u201d is the more common form: just as in America we say we \u201clike\u201d things in conversation more often than \u201clove\u201d unless we do have a more intense feeling for the things we are describing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another interesting thing I have learned as someone who is trying to learn Russian through Georgians, is that they do have an accent when they speak Russian, which has made it a little harder for me to understand some of what they say, but I am getting used to it. For example, with \u201c\u043a\u0443\u0448\u0430\u0439\u201d as it\u2019s written it would be pronounced \u201ckoo-shai,\u201d but my hosts pronounce it more like \u201ckoo-shee.\u201d Long story short, the wonderful family I\u2019m with now is not the homestay I was originally assigned to, I actually switched from a home with two Belorussian women, and I noticed that I could understand them fairly well vs. the slower progression of understanding I\u2019ve had with my new family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, this country is different from the United States, and while I have noticed differences in the cultural behaviors of some people, I think what I\u2019ve learned most so far is that people are people wherever you go, and we are not all that different! Like in my own home in America, we usually eat dinner together, but not all of the time as sometimes I go out, etc. And so far, we actually have not all eaten together. I think it has to do with it being summer: the dad still goes to work and gets up early like I do because I have class in the morning, and the rest of the family sleeps in because the kids are not in school. So I usually eat breakfast alone, but sometimes with the dad; I have eaten lunch with the youngest son, my host mom and grandma; and the rest of the food is usually just made as people get hungry because no one is really on a set schedule because it’s summer break. This is similar to how my family is with meals during the summer at home! To summarize\u2026 \u041c\u043d\u0435 \u043e\u0447\u0435\u043d\u044c \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u0441\u044f \u0433\u0440\u0443\u0437\u0438\u043d\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u043a\u0443\u0445\u043d\u044f!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Getting Acquainted with the Colloquial ` Hello, all! I have now been in Batumi, Georgia for two weeks and have been really enjoying learning about Georgian culture so far! I have been living with a Georgian family of six, my host mom, Natia, her husband, her mother and father, and her two sons. They mostly … Continue reading Hello, Georgia!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4270,"featured_media":2630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}