Lessons

A short course in reading and building sentences — each lesson is a few minutes, and each ends with a self-test you click to reveal.

1. 1

   Reading Karachay

   The three spellings, the handful of new sounds, and why vowels travel in packs.

2. 2

   Pronouns and the simple past

   Six pronouns, six endings — and your first real sentences.

3. 3

   The present

   One tense does the work of two: "I go" and "I'm going".

4. 4

   The two futures

   Two ways to talk about later — a loose promise and a firm plan.

5. 5

   Saying no

   One small syllable turns any verb negative — plus the word for "is not".

6. 6

   Asking questions

   One more small syllable turns any statement into a question — the art is knowing where it goes.

7. 7

   The little verb edi

   One tiny helper gives you was-doing, had-done, would, and would-have — the main verb never changes.

8. 8

   The two pasts

   One says a thing happened. The other says it has happened — and that its result is still standing.

9. 9

   If, would, and would have

   Every kind of "if" gets its own form — and one ending decides whether you missed a trip or never knew about it.

10. 10

    Can, can't, must

    Ability with a helper verb hiding inside the word, and necessity that never conjugates the verb at all.

11. 11

    The six shapes of a noun

    Where English reaches for little words like to, at, and from, the noun itself changes shape.

12. 12

    Whose it is

    My, your, and our live inside the word — six endings that every noun can wear.

13. 13

    Words that grow

    Number, owner, and direction stack onto one word, in one fixed order — a whole phrase in a single word.

14. 14

    Describing things

    Adjectives never change before a noun, compare with a from-form, and can carry the to-be endings themselves.

15. 15

    Joining two actions

    One ending turns a verb into a companion for the next one — and that is how Karachay says "bring", "until" and "as soon as".

16. 16

    How an action unfolds

    Not when something happened but how it went — right in the middle of it, or over and over for years.

17. 17

    What Karachay doesn't have

    Four endings every neighbouring language has and this one doesn't — and what it says instead.

18. 18

    Making new words

    Four endings that don't change a word's shape but replace it — with, without, -ness, and the person who does it for a living.