The tongue eventually learns

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

This has been running over and over and over and over in my head all afternoon since dance class. It's the numbers one - eight in Georgian. And after hearing my dance teacher say them many, many, many times throughout the two and a half-hour class, the pattern of thought is stuck. As I went for a run after class, I counted. (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.) As I stretched afterward, I counted. (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.) As I showered, I counted. (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.) About the 1,000th time the string of numbers played in my mouth, I realized something (erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva) -- not only do I know what these words mean, but I can say them with ease. (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.) That is a vast, vast difference from only three months ago when I wrote down these then-so-foreign words while in California and stumbled through the pronunciation. (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.) The first time I tried to say them was a riot! Especially "eqsvi" and "rva." As my dad used to say, "My tongue got twisted around my eye-teeth so I couldn't see what I was saying!" I didn't know how to form the sounds. The combinations of consonants were sounds that I had never made before -- at least not on purpose. Now I have no trouble combining a "q" with an "s" and a "v." (Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.)

I'm not entirely sure when my tongue loosened up, but I find myself saying Georgian words much more easily now. That is one of the things I find most interesting about language -- the sounds that are unique to each distinct one. When I first learned Spanish, I could not roll my "r" -- it wasn't until four years into studying the language that my mouth figured out how to make that sound. But since I have been speaking English all my life, I don't find any of its sounds difficult. I didn't think of any of them as tricky -- until teaching English as a foreign language. There are many sounds in English that give my Georgian-learners difficulty. Sounds like "ir" in "bird" or "girl;" almost no one can pronounce this correctly -- the "th" sound (hard and soft) comes out as "s," "z," or "d" -- the "w" is constantly mixed up with the "v" -- the combination of any vowel and "ng"-- the "r" -- and the list could go on. 

In all fairness, there are still four Georgian letters that I cannot pronounce correctly -- there were seven, so I'm improving!

Teaching pronunciation is almost as frustrating as learning it. I have had lots of practice teaching Spanish pronunciation, so I know how to explain what is going on inside the mouth to form the uniquely-Spanish sounds. And I think I could explain how to form the English sounds.....but I don't know how to say any of that in Georgian. So I do a lot of pointing to various parts of my lips, throat, tongue, and teeth while over-emphasizing one, isolated sound. It gets pretty funny sometimes! But looking and sounding ridiculous is completely worth it when one of my students suddenly stumbles into the correct pronunciation through the unintelligible repetition of sound. Replicating the correct sound then becomes the trick....

So as I continue to teach and learn language, my mouth and my mind are being exercised. At least I have the counting pattern down for the exercise......erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva. 

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.

Erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, eqsvi, shvidi, rva.