Statistically, if you are in Georgia, it’s more than sure that sooner or later you will hear: Where are you from? So how to say ‘Where are you from?’ in Georgian and how to answer such question? Let’s learn this today.
This phrase is definitely worth adding to the list of things you should learn in Georgian. Regardless of whether you are learning Georgian just for a holiday trip or you want to become fluent in the language.
How to ask ‘Where are you from?’ in Georgian?
If you want to answer such a Georgian question, first of all you need to understand it. Just like in Polish, the verb used will be ‘to be’, which you can read about in our separate lesson on the conjugation of the verb to be in Georgian. The key question is ‘Where from?’, i.e. საიდან (saidan). This word you may connect with a similar one – ‘Where?’ (სად?; sad).
So let’s now look at both words:
სად – Where?
საიდან – Where from?
As you can probably already see, the only difference is the ending – იდან/-დან, which means “from”. We will come back to this ending in a moment. Let’s first look at the whole question that combined from these two Georgian words:
საიდან ხარ? – Where are you from? (saidan har)
Two notes about the word საიდან. Remember that, unlike English, question words in Georgian are not used to create affirmative sentences. What does it mean? In sentences like: “The country where you come from is beautiful” in Georgian, the ‘where’ word will be a different one than in the sentences: ‘Where are you from? Tell me where your aunt is from’.
Secondly, remember that question words should always appear directly before the verb in the question, so do not separate them with other words, e.g. a personal pronoun, regardless of whether you are asking where you are from in Georgian or asking a different question. Let’s look at examples, this time with the plural form (you are), which in Georgian can also mean a polite form. If you don’t know Georgian personal pronouns, this lesson of ours will help you learn it.
Therefore, ‘Where are you from?’ in Georgian in plural form you may say საიდან ხართ თქვენ? or თქვენ საიდან ხართ?
How to answer ‘Where are you from?’ in Georgian?
Now that you know the basic form of asking ‘Where are you from?’ in Georgian, let’s move to the answer. The mentioned ending – იდან/-დან can be translated as English ‘from (some place)’, but with a small piece of additional information. Its application to the country of origin is one of the first you learn, but not the only one. Generally, we can apply it to various sentences when we want to show that something is there, going etc. from some place (not only the country) or from some point in time, e.g. ‘I have been working since (from) 8’.
However, we do not use -იდან/-დან when we say ‘from someone’ (e.g. we are coming from Lasha or we got a gift from Lasha) or when something is made of some material. Then we have another suffix, about which there will be a separate lesson soon. After this theoretical introduction, it’s time to get more specifics.
How to use this form when answering in Georgian where are you from and why are there two forms?
We add the letter –ი– depending on the letter the stem of our word ends with. It doesn’t always have to be a noun, but never a conjugated verb. We have the following options to choose from:
The word may end in –ი, e.g. პოლონეთი (poloneti). Then we drop –ი, which is the ending, and to პოლონეთ– we add the ending –იდან, which gives us პოლონეთიდან (from Polish; polonetidan)
Often, especially for countries, the last letter may be –ა. Then we also treat it as an ending and put –იდან in its place, e.g. It is similar with words ending in –ე.
Now let’s consider words ending in –ო and –უ. This is where the second option finally comes into play, i.e. –დან. An example would be Georgia and from Georgia: საქართველო (sakartwelo) – საქართველოდან (saqartwelodan).
Finally, a little tip on how to say and answer where you are from in Georgian. When speaking a foreign language, the most important thing is not to panic. Even if the question you asked seemed incomprehensible, remember that very often the questions asked give us a hint on how to build our own sentence. Look again at our main question: საიდან ხარ? You see that the ‘from’ ending is already in the question word. If you catch it, that’s half of the success- just add it to the place you want to talk about.
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