[.ca] Georgian: A Learner's Grammar (ISBN 0415333717)

Coming from a Georgian Pofessor...:
Professor George Hewitt obviously did not condescend to have his manuscript checked by a native speaker. probably having assumed his knowledge of Georgian is flawless. BUT GEORGIANS DO NOT SPEAK THE WAY MR. HEWITT ASSUMES THEY DO! Besides numerous grammatical mistakes, many syntactically clumsy sentences can be understood only if they are translated verbatim back into English. The author constantly mixes different speech styles, polite formulas with rude or substandard expressions. Here is a piece of "friendly" conversation among two students: "Oh dear, what are those boils (that have) popped out on your face?!", asked one student. "There are no pimples (on my face), you good for nothing", retaliates the latter. The Georgian equivalent of "good for nothing" is far more insulting and far less expected to be used among friends than in English. The book also contains a number of thoroughly politicized dialogues that refer to extremely complex and sensitive political and ethnic problems plaguing contemporary Georgia. The author, however, has no problem finding the "right" answers and never hesitates to offer (through the mouth of his fictional characters) "wise" advise to Georgians, who are invariably presented as obnoxious, servile, and vulgar. On page 172, a Georgian congratulates his British acquaintance who "has guessed the Georgians' boastfulness. In another dialogue a speaker asks his friend: "Was it our obnoxious character that caused the mistakes we made?" (page 334) A certain Paata is telling his interlocutor (his boss or someone his senior) that he, just like every Georgian, "doesn't give a damn" what the words on his T-shirt mean, as long as it is foreign made (page 191) The Georgian equivalent of the expression "don't give a damn" (literally "it's hanging on my legs") is much ruder than the English, and nobody would use it while speaking to his superior, unless one would want to be intentionally rude. In order to demonstrate a certain type of verb conjugation, Professor Hewitt found it admissible to use the obscenities "you pee" and "you take a crap", which he translates as "you urinate" and "you defecate" respectively (page 52). One can imagine how embarrassed a person would find himself if he were to use these words in a conversation with a doctor, for instance. Professor Hewitt must have decide to "improve" even Georgian folklore and has transformed a humorous tongue twister: " A frog is croaking in the water" into " A frog is croaking in the putrid water" (page 5). An English speaker would certainly be surprised to read something like: " Peter Piper Picked a peck of putrid peppers". Professor Hewitt is known as a talented linguist and it is a pity that he has disgraced himself by writing a textbook which is insulting and humiliating the people whose language he is supposed to be teaching to unsuspecting students. Furthermore, Georgian a Learner's Grammar should be subtitled "Hate the Georgians!" Such a title would best reflect the sense of venom which permeates the entire book. Sincerely, Professor Dodona Kiziria Indiana University

Not really all that suitable for learners:
Georgian is unquestionably a difficult language for a lot of reasons. It would be good to have a book that teaches, say, the 1000 most important words, introduces verb conjugations gradually and simplifies a very complicated subject. Although the book does cover a lot of information, it isn't really all that suitable for learners. Perhaps in the next edition it could be revised to simplify the presentation of difficult grammar, to include more repetition of the vocabulary. It could be accompanied by a cassette of the vocabulary and the dialogues. That would make it much more valuable. However, Georgian is not an easy subject to teach and the author deserves commendation for at least making a brave effort. As to the comments of the other reviewers, perhaps they should be less sensitive to perceived slights. Why don't they write a book on Georgian language? Mr Hillary has made it possible for willing students to get a grasp of this fascinating language.

Learner's grammar is an improper title:
Hewitt's book may be considered useful as long as you need only an exhaustive and detailed description of Georgian grammar but you will never learn Gerogian with it. The book completely lacks an effective and efficient language teaching method and is very poor didactically for many reasons, among which the following, that immediately catch the eyes: a) the texts and the words in the first lessons are given in latin transliteration only - a very confusing transliteration indeed! - without the corresponding Georgian; switching to Georgian in further lessons is almost shocking. b) The abundant and complex grammar information (nouns, verbs, declensions...) are cumulated without the clarity necessary for learning (no tables, no schemes). c) The dialogues, translated only in the first lessons, are pointless, even sensless, and abstract from real conversation topics; you come out with the impressions that Goergians can't do anything but sitting on the grass! In complete desperation, I have quitted reading Hewitt's grammar after the very second lesson and I've switched to a very good grammar in Russian edition Hewitt's grammar is definitively neither optimized for self-learning neither a practical language tutorial! I do not recommend it!

A good introduction to a mind-bending subject.:
Trying to learn Georgian is like banging your head off the wall. It is an incredibly difficult language, the main problem being the verb, which frequently must agree with the subject, the direct object and the indirect object. Not only that, but verbs can take different cases depending on what tense they are in. But if you still want to learn Georgian after all that, this is a good book to use. The dialogues are interesting, the vocabulary rich and varied, and the exercises are quite funny. Learning Georgian is no lark, but this is a well designed book that can help the persistent learner on his way. I'm on chapter seven, but I still have a lot to learn. jalian kargi cignia (It's a very good book)

A bizarre book:
First of all, I'd like to emphasize that I would not call what I have written a review (maybe, just a feedback). I wonder what the author's intention was: to write an essential grammar of Georgian or to characterize the people speaking this language. Whenever a reader comes across a book of an essential grammar of a language, he or she plans to read about grammar and not the author's likes and dislikes. I would not recommend it to my acquaintances who want to know more about Georgian. I know very little about this language, however, what I am sure of (based on my personal experience), is that the people speaking this language are very good. I have read that Prof. Hewitt is a skilfull linguist. Alas, your aspirations in the book in question cannot add much to your professional fame.