Abstract:

The process of teaching Georgian as a second and foreign language has put forward important objectives. On the one hand, it implies the analysis and sharing of the international experience, and, based on this experience, creation of manuals embracing the entire system of language knowledge levels and adjusted to modern requirements. On the other hand, taking into account the peculiarities of the Georgian language, it is necessary to develop a completely new vision regarding numerous issues. Georgian is an agglutinative language. This means the existence of markers of grammatical categories in the word-forms and is related to certain semantic features. The system of the Georgian verb is peculiar in that it is based on morphosyntactic features, due to which the verb-forms are grouped into three series and eleven screeves. Besides, the teaching process is complicated due to the non-existence of a unified pattern of formation of tenses. After the learner has mastered the verb-forms, he/she is faced with the difficulty of building correct constructions. This largely depends on the verb-forms, since the latter govern the members of the sentence, requiring concrete case-forms in each situation. The issue is even more complicated because, in the native languages of the learners of Georgian, there are no analogues supporting positive transfer. In order to overcome these problems, it is necessary to compile learner’s dictionaries (in printed and online versions) that will enable the learners to get acquainted with important issues related to language acquisition, including specific verb-forms and constructions. It should be mentioned that the existing dictionaries, both explanatory and bilingual, have been aimed at native language speakers and do not contain the specific information necessary for foreign leaners of Georgian. We have worked out certain principles, based on which the dictionary on the portal of Georgian language learning (http://dictionary.geofl.ge//) will be reviewed. Definition of principles and identification of the information appended to the dictionary forms will help the language learners to understand and master the complicated linguistic peculiarities of the Georgian language. The dictionary also enables to verify the information regarding the verb-forms. This has been impossible until now due to the absence of corresponding data. The paper focuses on the principles of compilation of the learner’s dictionary and underlines its significance for the process of teaching of the Georgian language.