Welcome
to the Companion Website of
East Armenian Course
The interactive resources in this site are intended for English speaking learners of Armenian, particularly, Eastern Armenian, who are just beginning to learn the alphabet. These resources include audio recordings, interactive exercises, games, quizzes and other practice materials and were designed as a supplement to the textbook “East Armenian Course” by A. Gevorgyan. The materials are sequenced to coincide with the presentation of content in the textbook. Nevertheless, we are sure that learners of Armenian using other textbooks will also benefit from the resources presented below. The interactive materials will be useful for anyone beginning to learn how to read and write in Armenian.
Why Learn Armenian
Armenian is the language of the first country that adopted Christianity as its official religion. The Armenian translation of the Bible, done in 411 AD, is one of the oldest. It is often called the “queen of the versions” and is regarded as both beautiful and accurate.
The Armenian language uses a unique, almost perfect alphabet created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD. This alphabet is perfect in that there is almost one to one correspondence between the letters and the sounds.
Armenian constitutes a branch of its own in the Indo-European family of languages. Thus many Armenian words are cognates of words from other Indo-European languages, such as English, Spanish, Russian, etc. For example, door in Armenian is dur’, bring is berel, eight is ut, mother is mayr, daughter is dustr, cow is kov, light is luys (compare also the word lucid), etc.
Lord Byron, one of the greatest English poets said: “Armenian is the language to speak with God”. On another occasion he mentioned, “Armenian, is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it”.
In my personal opinion one of the most important benefits of learning Armenian is the ability to read Armenian poetry. Not only is it very beautiful but also it is a portal to the Armenian soul and the Armenian spirit.
Tips on Studying Armenian
Bear in mind that in order to be able to communicate in a language you do not need to know too many words. The most frequent 100 words of a language make up about 50% of all communication. After learning the top 1000 words you will be able to understand 80% of communication in that language.
Here are some tips that may be helpful to language learners:
- Set goals and reward yourself frequently
- Practice regularly
- In addition to using books and multimedia resources find opportunities to practice speaking with a native speaker
- Try thinking in the new language as much as you can, especially using the topic vocabulary that you are learning at the moment
- Learning poems and songs helps learn vocabulary and grammar in context and is very rewarding