Learning Georgian

Most people decide to learn Georgian after falling for the country, a person, or the look of the writing. Then they open their usual language app and find it isn't there. The ones who keep going meet a script with no familiar letters, a word that starts with eight consonants, and a verb that changes depending on who did what to whom.

This guide covers what the Georgian language is, why it's hard, which tools exist, and what Vocabi does about it.

Kartuli: the Georgian language in brief

Georgians call their language kartuli (ქართული), and their country Sakartvelo (საქართველო). It's the official language of Georgia, the country in the Caucasus, not the US state. About 3.76 million people speak it natively, with around 150,000 more as a second language.

Georgian belongs to the Kartvelian family, along with its much smaller relatives Mingrelian, Laz and Svan. It isn't related to Russian, Turkish, Armenian or the languages of Western Europe. So if you speak English, almost nothing carries over. Even the first words you learn can trick you: დედა (deda) means mother and მამა (mama) means father.

The US Foreign Service Institute puts Georgian in its 44-week group, about 1,100 class hours, and marks it as usually harder than others in that group. That's nearly twice as long as it allows for Portuguese or Spanish.

The Georgian alphabet

The first wall is also the best part. Modern Georgian is written in Mkhedruli, one of three Georgian scripts recognized together by UNESCO as living heritage in 2016. It has 33 letters. Everyday writing has no capitals, so there's only one set to learn. All-caps forms do appear in titles and signs.

• აa
• ბb
• გg
• დd
• ეe
• ვv
• ზz
• თt
• იi
• კkʼ
• ლl
• მm
• ნn
• ოo
• პpʼ
• ჟzh
• რr
• სs
• ტtʼ
• უu
• ფp
• ქk
• ღgh
• ყqʼ
• შsh
• ჩch
• ცts
• ძdz
• წtsʼ
• ჭchʼ
• ხkh
• ჯj
• ჰh

The 33 letters of the Georgian alphabet in order, with the romanization Vocabi teaches. The highlighted letters are ejectives, marked with a small ʼ.

The good news is that Georgian spelling mostly follows the sound, so once you know the letters you can read words aloud, even without knowing what they mean. A determined learner can get there in days or weeks.

The catch is that the letters are round, curly and easy to mix up. ვ and კ look alike, and so do დ and ღ. Looking at a chart doesn't fix that. Writing them does.

What makes Georgian hard

Two of every consonant

English has one k. Georgian has an aspirated one with a puff of air and an ejective one with a sharp pop from the throat. The same split runs through several consonants, and swapping them can change the word.

Then there's ყ (qʼ), made even further back in the throat, plus the rasping ღ (gh) and ხ (kh). Many learners name ყ as the hardest sound of all. You'll need it early, because it sits in the word for water.

Consonants in a pile

Georgian happily stacks consonants at the start of a word. Three is common, and the record-holders go much further: მწვრთნელი (mtsʼvrtneli, trainer) opens with six, and გვფრცქვნი (gvprtskvni, you peel us) opens with eight. It looks impossible on the page and takes practice in the mouth, though you'll rarely need to peel anyone.

Verbs that hold a whole sentence

This is where most long-term learners spend their time. A Georgian verb can mark both who acts and who it's done to, and it comes in eleven tense-and-mood sets called screeves. Three things catch people out:

• One word does the work of several. მიყვარხარ (miqʼvarkhar) means "I love you", with both people inside the verb.
• Prefixes carry direction. მიდის (midis) is "goes" and მოდის (modis) is "comes". Others add up, down, in, out and across.
• The cases swap with the tense. In the present, it's კაცი წერს წერილს, "the man writes a letter". In the past, both nouns change form: კაცმა დაწერა წერილი, "the man wrote a letter". That second pattern is called ergative, and English has nothing like it.

Some good news: Georgian has no grammatical gender and no articles. Even "he" and "she" are the same word.

Counting in twenties

Georgian numbers from 20 to 99 count in twenties, so you do a little math each time someone tells you a price.

The limited tools for learning Georgian

With about four million speakers, Georgian isn't a priority for big companies. Reviews from people who teach Georgian report no Georgian course on Duolingo, Babbel or Rosetta Stone, and no official one on Memrise. Those reviews come from companies that sell Georgian courses, so read their rankings with care, but we've seen nothing that contradicts this part.

Georgian tools do exist. They're mostly smaller, and each covers part of the job:

Based on each tool's own pages and EasyGeorgian's 2026 roundup, whose author says openly that he favours his own app. We haven't tested all of these ourselves. Check current prices and details before paying.

What we wanted, and built, was a free path that treats the alphabet as the first game rather than a chart to get past, then carries your words into a world made for Georgian.

Solved: Vocabi starts with the Georgian alphabet

Disclosure: this part is about our own product. It's written by the people who make Vocabi, and the limits are listed further down. "Solved" is fair for the alphabet and the missing app. It isn't for the whole language, and nothing short of years of practice will be.

Vocabi teaches Georgian from English or Portuguese. It's free on Android and the web, and every tool feeds the same deck of words.

Trace, sort, transcribe

If the alphabet is new to you, Vocabi starts there. You can also tell it you already read Georgian and skip ahead. Three tools build on each other:

• The scroll. All 33 letters, most common first. You trace each one with your finger, and it fills in with colour.
• Sorting. This opens after two traced letters. You drop each letter into the right jar, and later rounds use letters that are easy to mix up by shape, like ვ and კ.
• Transcribe. This opens after three. You write real Georgian words, like აი, one sound at a time. The keys show sounds rather than Latin letters, so kʼ and tsʼ take one tap, and you choose between each plain sound and its ejective partner.

A village in Kakheti, for your first 100 words

Next comes a ruined village in the style of Kakheti, Georgia's wine country. It has cobble-and-brick houses with painted timber balconies, wine cellars beside a vineyard, and a brick citadel above the square, inspired by Sighnaghi and Gremi. As you learn words, its 25 lots rise from ruins through five stages.

You start with ten words, then get five a day. A word counts as learned when you get it right three times in a row. Reach 100 and the wider world opens, and your words come with you.

Games in Georgian script

All nine word and number games on the village ring work in Georgian, and none of them asks you to find Georgian letters on your phone's keyboard. Lamplight gives you an on-screen Georgian keyboard, and Crossword, Word Search and Mosaic work in the script too. Matchy pairs words with meanings, Word Blocks builds sentences, and Fill the Blank works on verb forms in context. Bubbles and Coin Count drill numbers from 0 to 100, including all those twenties.

Reader, stories and Translator

The Reader has six short Georgian stories, two at A1 and four at A2, from ეს არის თათია ("This is Tatia") to a trip to the market and a family portrait. You can also paste in any text. Tap a word to see its meaning and keep it.

The Translator turns what you type into Georgian and shows how it sounds in Latin letters. It's machine translation, so treat it as a helper rather than the final word.

Real people: Yap and the extension

Yap is live chat with people you know, and it works in Georgian. If there's a Georgian friend or in-law behind your interest, this is the place to use your words. Every word you keep from a chat lands in the same deck. The browser extension does the same with subtitles on Netflix, YouTube and Angel, though Georgian subtitles are hard to find. It runs on desktop Chrome and is still with a small group of testers.

Where Vocabi falls short for Georgian

• It won't teach you the sounds by ear. The letter tools have no audio, and neither do the stories or number games. The Translator can only speak if your device has a Georgian voice, and many don't. You'll learn that k and kʼ are different, not how to pronounce them. Use a tutor or an audio course for this.
• It doesn't teach the verb system. Verbacid, our verb drill, has no Georgian verbs yet, and Fill the Blank's supply of them is small. For screeves and the ergative, you'll need a teacher or a grammar book.
• The world is still mostly in English. Only about 10% of the signs and text in the world have been translated into Georgian so far.
• Numbers are learned as words. The games drill them one at a time and don't explain how the twenties work. The table above will have to do that.
• The depth stops well before fluency. Six short stories and a dictionary of about 2,000 words will get you started. They won't carry you to conversation on their own.
• There's no iOS app. Vocabi is on Android and the web. It's free, with light ads in the games and the world.

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