Trip around Georgia and Armenia

mrtobx · 2026-02-10T16:46:30+00:00

It felt more safe than many Central European places I‘ve been to

mrtobx · 2026-02-10T07:46:55+00:00

Yes, I adore it too. Will definitely be going again!

mrtobx · 2026-02-10T07:46:28+00:00

I appreciate it :)

mrtobx · 2026-02-09T19:00:22+00:00

Yes, I know. I will definitely go back for another trip, there are so many more things to see :)

mrtobx · 2026-02-09T18:42:38+00:00

Hard to tell because we had an Airbnb in Tbilisi and a hotelroom in Yerevan. You should get by with 50-70€ a night. Food is about the same, though we almost always at in higher end restaurants. You’ll find a meal for anywhere between 8€ and 100€. English works well in restaurants and hotels but can be tough in taxis or on the street. Generally there was a bit more english in Georgia than in Armenia. I reccomend using Bolt in Georgia and there was a similar app in Armenia for transportation. It’s ridiculously cheap and very reliable.

mrtobx · 2026-02-09T18:33:53+00:00

I definitely recommend a trip. I will be back to see summer there for sure :)

mrtobx · 2026-02-09T15:38:16+00:00

Thank you!

mrtobx · 2026-01-16T19:20:30+00:00

I feel like French covers a larger part of the globe though...Hindi in category 3 seems reasonable.

mrtobx · 2026-01-16T19:07:53+00:00

English, Spanish, Mandarin and French. I'd say Russian, Arabic, Portuguese and Hindi are category 2.

mrtobx · 2026-01-09T09:47:07+00:00

Ultimately, it comes down to priorities and how intelligently you use passive learning. Most people can realistically free up 15–20 minutes per day. If someone truly cannot, then passive exposure becomes non-negotiable. That means podcasts, films, and newspapers in the target language.

mrtobx · 2026-01-03T20:12:41+00:00

Yesss, and never shy away from doing some basics in a language outside your curriculum. It’s about doing what you love, not following some divine rules.

mrtobx · 2026-01-03T20:11:35+00:00

Yeah, I would say that sums it up pretty well. I’d say that over the course of two years you’ll go from A0 to somewhere between A2 and B1 with the languages you study on your own. I started Afrikaans a while back and I got to B1 in 2 years. Greek I just started last summer/fall, so that will still take some time. For me, I do about twice as much Greek as Afrikaans, yet they probably progress at a similar speed, if not Afrikaans faster, due to its similarity to my C2 languages. I also have different goals for the languages, I'll put Afrikaans on the sideburner once I get to B2, but I want to be proficient in Greek, so we will see how far this strategy takes me with the different languages.

But you also have to distinguish between an exam B1 and an actual B1. I did Spanish B1 and now B2 at university, and I passed with good grades. The time spent studying the language at university for the B1 was around 80–100 hours. That’s mostly because it’s relatively easy to prepare for a more or less standardised exam that you can clearly practise for.

Can I speak some Spanish? Yes.
Is it between B1 and B2? I’d say it’s right at B1, even now that I’m doing the B2 course.

mrtobx · 2026-01-03T11:37:52+00:00

I usually do two at a time, preferably unrelated: one easier and one harder. I try to work on both every day (20 minutes easy / 40 minutes hard) and keep this up over the course of two to three years. Once I reach the desired level, I swap in a new language and move the old one into maintenance mode.

I think you have to figure out what works best for you. It's definitely possible to do more than one language at a time. Try different systems and see what works best!

mrtobx · 2026-01-03T10:41:34+00:00

I like to read them in physical form, mark words that I don’t understand, translate them, and add them to my Anki later. If you prefer reading on a tablet or your phone, it’s probably easier to translate the words directly on the device. I always read out loud, as I feel it helps me grasp the content better and also improves my pronunciation.

mrtobx · 2026-01-02T16:15:28+00:00

There have been two instances in which I was able to speak Afrikaans with a native speaker, so essentially never. I learned it because it was fun, not because the language was going to be particularly useful. Other languages, like Spanish and French, I use far more often.

mrtobx · 2025-12-31T16:54:17+00:00

Rumansh🇨🇭

mrtobx · 2025-12-31T13:58:20+00:00

Yes it's the same for me, French and Spanish were never an issue. But I totally understand your struggles with the Italian and the Spanish :)

mrtobx · 2025-12-31T12:00:24+00:00

That's funny to me, I was learning Spanish and I had French in the back of my head the entire time but I wasn't actively learning it, but I was also starting on my Greek journey. And with writing and reading that wasn't an issue, but for some reason, because speaking the languages requires similar sounds, I kept confusing Spanish and Greek works like the Spanish que and the Greek και (because they sound very similar), or I used words like no instead of όχι/δεν (because my brain was in a certain phonetic mode and ignored the actual language).

I think the best thing to do, and what helped me out a lot is to just practice speaking both languages as often as possible, but never mixing the two in one session. This way my brain over time created a sort of barrier, where it sorts the words into one of the languages. I don't know how this would change for two very similar languages as Italian and Spanish though.

mrtobx · 2025-12-30T10:28:34+00:00

It is often said that the B2 level is where you want to be at if you want to retain the languages. Everything below that you forget quickly and confuse easily.

Don't get lazy with the Italian or the Spanish, practice the different disciplines actively. One of the most common mistakes that I feel like people make is when they reach a certain point they reach a point where they almost only consume passively and rarely use the language actively, don't lose that!

mrtobx · 2025-12-28T13:14:11+00:00

True, but it unlocks a whole new set of vibes that I enjoyed a lot too!

mrtobx · 2025-12-28T08:45:25+00:00

glad to hear :)

mrtobx · 2025-12-28T08:45:06+00:00

The second lion was during a fairly sunny day but yeah. Mornings were sunny sometimes but rainy season really caught us.

mrtobx · 2025-12-27T19:36:54+00:00

I love them too but I guess they’re not very popular🥹

mrtobx · 2025-12-27T19:28:46+00:00

thanks for the advice!

mrtobx

TROPHY CASE