You learn how to say “how are you” in Georgian, feel good about it, and then discover there are two of them. One is for your friend. One is for your friend’s mother. Use the wrong one and nobody will correct you, which is somehow worse. This is formal Georgian versus informal Georgian, and it comes down to one choice you make in the first second of every conversation: shen or tkven.
The rule is short enough to fit in a summary box, and it is up there. What takes longer is the feel for who gets which, so that is where most of this post goes.
Two words for you
Georgian has two second-person pronouns, and they carry the whole formal and informal system between them.
Shen is singular and familiar. Tkven is the plural you, addressed to a group, and it doubles as the polite you for one person. If you have met French tu and vous, or German du and Sie, or Russian ty and vy, this is the same idea, and it works the same way: the plural form borrowed as a sign of respect.
That double duty matters for listening. When a Georgian says tkven to you, they are either being polite or including your companion. Context sorts it out, and it is almost never ambiguous in practice.
The verb changes too
Here is the part that catches learners. The pronoun is not the only marker, and in fast speech Georgians drop pronouns constantly, so the verb is often the only clue you get. The formal form of a verb addressed to you ends in t. The informal form does not.
Khar becomes khart. The same tiny suffix does the same job on every verb.
And the shortest exchange of all, the one you will use every day.
The practical rule for a beginner: if you are using tkven, the verb needs to end in a t. For most verbs you simply add it. One catch worth knowing early: when the informal verb already ends in an s, as in mogts’ons (you like it), the t replaces the s rather than following it, so the formal form is mogts’ont, not mogts’onst. If you are using shen, no t at all. The whole system, for everyday purposes, is that one letter. The post on how are you in Georgian walks through the full greeting exchange in both registers if you want the complete script.
| informal (shen) | formal (tkven) | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rogor khar | rogor khart | how are you |
| ginda | gindat | do you want |
| da shen | da tkven | and you |
Who gets shen and who gets tkven
This is where a grammar page stops and a person who lives here has to take over.
Tkven goes to anyone you do not know, anyone noticeably older than you, anyone in a position of authority (the bank clerk, the doctor, the police officer at the checkpoint), and anyone you would address as Mr. or Mrs. Shop staff will use it with you and expect it back. The taxi driver gets tkven. The woman at the market stall gets tkven, even if she is calling you shvilo (my child) by the second visit.
Shen goes to friends, to family once you are inside it, to children, and to anyone your own age who has started using it with you. Young Georgians in Tbilisi drop to shen with each other very fast, sometimes within a sentence of meeting. Between a foreigner and a Georgian the switch usually comes as an invitation, and you will know it when it happens because they simply start saying shen and you follow.
When unsure, tkven. This is not a close call. In all my time getting it wrong in both directions, I have never once seen a Georgian offended by too much politeness. Too little, with the wrong person, produces a small flicker you do not want. Default formal, wait for the invitation down, and you cannot go wrong.
Batono and kalbatono
The formal register comes with two words you will hear constantly and should use without fear.
Batono is sir, kalbatono is madam, and the trick is that in everyday life they go with the first name, not the surname. You almost never hear Mr. Giorgadze outside a news broadcast or a very official letter. He is batono Levan. She is kalbatono Tamar.
On their own, batono and kalbatono also work as a polite “sir?” or “madam?” when you did not catch something, or to get a waiter’s attention. They are the verbal equivalent of standing up slightly, and they pair naturally with tkven. If you are calling someone batono, you are on tkven with them, no exceptions.
The very polite layer you will hear but not need
Above ordinary formal Georgian there is one more register, and it is worth knowing it exists so it does not throw you. A handful of verbs have extra-polite versions used mostly in customer service and officialdom. The one you will hear most is brdzandebit in place of khart for “you are”, as in kartveli brdzandebit? (would you be Georgian?), and its partner gakhlavart for “I am” when someone is being very courteous about themselves.
You do not need to produce these. A learner saying brdzandebit sounds like a hotel receptionist. Recognize them, smile, answer with your ordinary tkven form, and everyone is happy.
What happens at your partner’s family table
The question I actually get asked, once someone has the rule, is the specific one: what do I call my girlfriend’s father. Or my husband’s grandmother. Or the aunt who has opinions.
Start with tkven and batono or kalbatono plus the first name, and mean it. This is the correct opening move and it costs nothing. What happens next varies by family. In many, someone will laugh and tell you to use shen, often quite early, and from then on you are family and speak like it. In others, or with certain older relatives, tkven stays, sometimes for years, and that is not coldness, it is just the register they are comfortable in with a son- or daughter-in-law. Follow the lead you are given, and if you are ever unsure at the table, the formal form is never wrong.
Speaking Georgian with my wife’s family, real Georgian around a real table rather than the ordering-coffee kind, is the thing that made me stop feeling like a permanent guest, and the register was part of it. Getting tkven and shen right with the right people is a small signal that you understand how the room works. Georgians notice it, and they are generous about it. The rest of what awaits you at that table is in the guide to your first supra.
How the switch actually gets learned
The rule in this post takes a minute to read. The instinct for when a Georgian will switch, or when you should, is not something a rule can give you. It arrives the way every pattern in Georgian arrives: from hearing hundreds of conversations in which people use the right form for the right person, until the wrong one starts to sound wrong to you too.
That is how the audio course handles it, incidentally. Both registers are there from the early lessons, formal with the strangers in the dialogues and informal with the friends, and you are prompted to produce each in context rather than told a rule about them. By the time anyone explains the t ending, you have already been saying it. This is the ordinary sequence for grammar in Georgian, patterns first and names later, and it is the argument made properly in the post on comprehensible input.
So learn the rule, default to tkven, put the t on the verb, and then stop thinking about it and go talk to people. The first time someone waves a hand and says shen, shen, you will know you have been let in.
