Learning Georgian for a trip: apps, the 40 words that matter and the alphabet in a day

Yes, you can learn the Georgian alphabet in a single afternoon, and a list of about 40 words and phrases will carry you through taxis, markets, village guesthouses and most restaurant menus. Georgian, or ქართული, is written in its own script, unrelated to Latin or Cyrillic, which looks daunting on a shop sign in Kutaisi or a marshrutka destination board. But the script is almost perfectly phonetic: once you know the sounds, you can read any word aloud, even if you do not yet know what it means. That single fact makes Georgian far more approachable for a short trip than its reputation suggests.

This guide sets out what is realistic to learn before you fly, how to pronounce the sounds that actually matter, the words locals use every day, how prices and signs are written, which apps are worth the download, and the small courtesies around toasting and the supra that make a visit warmer. None of this replaces a guide for nuance or a doctor for anything medical, but it will get you further than pointing and smiling, and travellers consistently tell us it changes how they are received.

The alphabet in a day: what is realistic

The modern Georgian script, Mkhedruli, has 33 letters, no capitals, and one letter per sound with very few exceptions. There is no silent E, no C that sometimes sounds like K, none of the irregularity that makes English spelling slow to teach a child. Most visitors who sit down with a printed alphabet chart and a cup of coffee can learn to sound out syllables within two or three hours, and read short signs and menu words by the end of a day of practice on the plane, in a taxi, in a café. Reading quickly, or understanding what you have read, takes longer, but recognition is the useful skill for a trip: you want to match the shape of a word to a sound, not necessarily to a meaning, because context (a bus stop, a pharmacy sign, a wine label) usually supplies the rest.

Georgia’s three historical writing systems, of which Mkhedruli is the living, everyday one, are recognised by UNESCO as part of the country’s intangible cultural heritage, which gives some sense of how central the script is to Georgian identity rather than being an obstacle to route around. For background on how the Representative List works, see UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage lists.

Pronunciation: the sounds that trip people up

Reading the letters is the easy part; producing the sounds accurately is harder, because Georgian distinguishes consonant sounds that English treats as the same letter. Most troublesome are the ejective consonants: Georgian has plain, aspirated and ejective versions of k, p, t and ts, pronounced with a sharp, glottal pop rather than a puff of breath. Mixing them up rarely causes real confusion (context carries you), but hearing for them will help you catch place names and menu items spoken quickly.

• ყ (q) is a deep, back-of-throat sound with no real English equivalent, as in ყველი (qveli, cheese).
• ხ (kh) is a hard, rasping sound like the Scottish “loch”, as in ხინკალი (khinkali).
• Consonant clusters are genuinely common and not a typo: მწვანილი (mtsvanili, herbs) really does start with four consonants in a row.
• Stress is light and fairly even across syllables, so do not hunt for a strong stressed syllable the way you would in English or Russian.

Georgian belongs to the Kartvelian language family, unrelated to its Indo-European and Turkic neighbours, which is part of why so little of it is guessable from other languages you may already speak. A short overview is available from Britannica on the Kartvelian languages.

The 40 words and phrases that matter

These cover greetings, politeness, food, numbers, directions and the handful of emergency words worth memorising. Transliterations are approximate; apostrophes mark the ejective sounds described above.

That is close to forty, and it is enough for taxis, cafés, village stays and a basic Old Town walk; our Old Tbilisi Walking Tour with a licensed guide is a good way to hear these words used naturally on your first day.

Numbers, prices and the lari

Georgia’s currency is the lari (GEL), divided into 100 tetri. Prices on menus and shop labels are written with Arabic numerals, so you do not need to read Georgian numerals to shop or eat, only to understand spoken prices in a market stall. Exchange rates move daily; for a current reference figure converted into euros, check our price and currency data page, updated against the National Bank of Georgia’s published rate. Card payment is widely accepted in cities, including by taxi apps and most restaurants, but small guesthouses, mountain villages and market stalls often expect cash, so carry some lari in Tusheti, Khevsureti or rural Racha.

Reading signs, menus and tickets

Road signs, metro stations, airport boards and railway tickets are almost always bilingual, with Georgian script above or beside a Latin transliteration. Spellings in Latin letters are not always consistent between a road sign, a map app and a hotel booking (Mtskheta and Mtzkheta, Tbilisi and sometimes older Tbilissi), which is normal and not a sign you are lost. Inside the capital, metro station names are announced and displayed in both scripts, and railway timetables and tickets follow the same bilingual pattern; see current schedules at Georgian Railway. Menus in tourist-facing restaurants usually carry an English translation, but village guesthouses and small-town cafés often do not, which is exactly where recognising a handful of food words from the table above earns its keep.

Apps and courses worth trying

No single app is a complete solution for Georgian, and catalogues change, so check each app’s current listing before you commit. As of late 2026, general-purpose apps with a Georgian course or phrasebook module include Mondly and uTalk; confirm availability and content on the app’s own store page before downloading, since course libraries are added and removed over time. A small number of language schools and university departments in Tbilisi run short courses or private lessons aimed at visitors; if you want structured lessons before or during your trip, it is worth emailing a department directly and asking about current short-course options rather than relying on an old listing. For most travellers on a trip of a week or two, a printed or offline flashcard set of the alphabet, used alongside the 40-word list above, delivers more practical value per hour than a full app subscription.

Politeness, toasts and the supra

Georgian hospitality has its own grammar, and a few habits matter more than vocabulary. Address strangers and anyone older than you formally, use gmadlobt rather than the shorter madloba with elders or officials, and never refuse an offered coffee, fruit or small gift outright; a polite “ar minda, gმადლობთ” (I don’t want it, thank you) said warmly is better than a flat no. If you are invited to a supra, the Georgian feast built around a tamada or toastmaster, you are not expected to drink heavily, but you are expected to stay seated until the toasts for that round finish and to raise your glass, even if it holds water, when a toast is addressed to a guest. Our Supra Evening with a Tamada and Polyphonic Song is a low-pressure way to experience this tradition with an explanation of what is happening as it unfolds, which is harder to get at a spontaneous family table.

Practical summary

• Spend two to three focused hours with an alphabet chart before you fly; Mkhedruli is phonetic, so reading aloud comes faster than understanding.
• Learn the 40 words above, with particular attention to greetings, please, thank you, numbers and “where is”.
• Practise the ejective sounds (q, kh, and the plain/aspirated/ejective k, p, t, ts) by ear rather than worrying about perfect accuracy.
• Prices are written in Arabic numerals everywhere; check current GEL exchange figures on our price data page before a market or cash-only village stay.
• Expect bilingual signage on roads, metro and rail, but accept inconsistent Latin spellings of the same place name.
• Download one phrasebook or flashcard app and verify its current Georgian content on the app store before relying on it.
• At a supra, stay seated through toasts and raise your glass even if it holds water; a licensed guide or a hosted evening such as our Supra Evening removes most of the guesswork.
• For anything beyond basic courtesy, a licensed private guide for the day removes the language barrier entirely and reads menus, signs and situations on your behalf.

Sources

• UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage lists
• Georgian Railway schedules and tickets
• Living Culture of Three Writing Systems of the Georgian Alphabet
• Georgia Destination Guide
• Agenda.ge Tag: Georgian Language
• Georgia Today Tag: Georgian Language