I taught myself to read and write Armenian at the age of 17...

03:25:00 25.09.2025

I taught myself to read and write Armenian at the age of 17 (since I had never attended an Armenian school), but my grammar was very poor and my spoken Armenian was still only at a basic conversational level. Exactly ten years ago, before moving to Armenia, I decided to improve my Armenian and found an online tutor from Armenia for that very purpose. Back then, I couldn’t answer even the simplest questions in proper literary Armenian, nor could I write even a single page without numerous crude grammatical mistakes. It was so bad that I even felt embarrassed during exercises.

Those online lessons helped to some extent, but I noticed real progress only about two years after moving to Armenia, when I decided to take private Armenian language lessons for nearly two years (2018–2020). During that time, I went through several volumes of grammar books, read different novels, and did countless written and oral exercises. Ten years ago, I knew—but couldn’t yet imagine—that the day would come when I would consistently write articles in literary Armenian, deliver public speeches, and give interviews every single day. Despite being born and raised in the U.S., my Armenian today is stronger than my English, because I can express my thoughts more clearly and eloquently in Armenian than in English. Sadly, the overwhelming majority of repatriates (I have not met even a single one who speaks and writes Armenian well) pay no attention to this extremely important issue.

But I am glad that I remained persistent and principled in this matter. I would not feel fully Armenian, nor could I consider myself a patriot, if I had not perfected my Armenian. And without perfecting it, I could never have entered politics in Armenia in order to realize my ideas.