Learning Lithuanian / Mokomės lietuviškai

[Strigo]

well I will write what you asked in lihuanian. If you will not understand then ask.

na "sveiki visiems" tikrai nenaudojama nebent linkėjimai visiems bet tai tik kaip palinkėjimas, o ne kaip pasisveikinimas.

tekste turėjo būti:
Ačiū už pataisymus ir komentarus(international) arba pastabas.

O šiaip Liisi galiu tave pagirti moki lietuviškai neblogai

I found in the forum that you are looking for lithuanian music, so if you want I can help you!
I have native lithuanian music made in a modern way. there are a lot of old lithuanian words which even I do not understand completly. So if you interested, I will create a web site.

Hi, I love Lithuanian, but I feel lack of motivation, I don't know why. I think I'm not going anywhere with my resources. Hope I get rid of this feeling soon.
Would you give us some good Lithuanian music?

[egidijus]

sveiki, I see you have different purposes for lithuanian language. Well I am very interested why do you learn or want to learn lithuanian language. I think it is not that you want to live in Lithuania...

So talking about music, I created the web site, there are only four songs, becouse there are lack of space.
I think I will change these songs after few days. It would be much easer to me if you could say in what music you are interested. Other informacion you will find in the site: www.polarhome.com/~egidijus

Are you interested in reading books? I found where you can find lithuanian literature for free online.

[Fenek]

Well I am very interested why do you learn or want to learn lithuanian language.

Things that encourage me to learn Lithuanian:
1) I like the way it sounds;
2) It would help me with my studies (I study slavistics).

[Liisi]

This time I won't write in Lithuanian, it would take so much time...

sveiki, I see you have different purposes for lithuanian language. Well I am very interested why do you learn or want to learn lithuanian language. I think it is not that you want to live in Lithuania...

I had many reasons when I started two years ago...

- I am a university student majoring in Russian and I wanted to choose another language from our department of Slavonic and Baltic languages
- The fact that I didn't even know how Lithuanian and Latvian sound like made it more interesting, like an adventure! With other Slavonic languages there probably wouldn't have been so many new things to learn
- There is a big need for translators from the Baltic languages into Finnish, because commerce and communication between our countries is growing fast and very few people know the languages here (because they think those languages are useless)
- A teacher of Russian, who helped me with organizing my studies, recommended I start studying Lithuanian. He studies it himself and told me interesting things about how archaic and rich a language it is
- One reason for choosing Lithuanian and not Latvian was that they didn't even offer a course in Latvian that year. I'm planning to learn it in the future, though. Another language that interested me was Polish: I wanted to see how similar it is to Russian and to know the language of the country my dad spent years of his childhood in. I'll definitely learn Polish one day, too, but that time I had more reasons for studying Lithuanian
- I have friends in Lithuania
- I heard the teacher is good

I could have stopped after one year, but I didn't because I fell in love with the language. I think it's the most beautiful language in the world (and I'm not joking)!

[Strigo]

sveiki, I see you have different purposes for lithuanian language. Well I am very interested why do you learn or want to learn lithuanian language. I think it is not that you want to live in Lithuania...

So talking about music, I created the web site, there are only four songs, becouse there are lack of space.
I think I will change these songs after few days. It would be much easer to me if you could say in what music you are interested. Other informacion you will find in the site: www.polarhome.com/~egidijus

Are you interested in reading books? I found where you can find lithuanian literature for free online.

Hi,

Why not living in Lithuanian? It's a wonderful place to live in, I guess!
The Lithuanian language is not very well known here, but it's amazing, it's old and very beautiful! Thanks for the link!

[Car]

sveiki, I see you have different purposes for lithuanian language. Well I am very interested why do you learn or want to learn lithuanian language. I think it is not that you want to live in Lithuania...

Because I'm interested in languages in general and because what I've heard about Lithuanian sounds really interesting. It would also be an adventure for me. And to know that there are others around here wanting to study it or studying it already also makes it more interesting.

[Liisi]

Are you interested in reading books? I found where you can find lithuanian literature for free online.

I know this site, there I found a lot of classic Lithuanian literature. But I'd like to know if there are other sites too, especially with newer literature. Do you know where I could get "Jauno žmogaus memuarai" by Ričardas Gavelis? I will need it in my studies.

Aš žinau šitą puslapį, ten aš suradau daug klasikinės lietuvių literaturos. Bet aš norėčiau žinoti, ar yra ir kitų puslapių, ypač su nauja literatura. Ar tu žinai, kur aš galėčiau gauti Ričardo Gavelio romaną "Jauno žmogaus memuarai"? Jis bus man reikalingas moksluose.

[egidijus]

I see that you learn it with seriuos reasons.

to Strigo: About living in Lithiania I dont know...It is difficult to find job even for people who have university education. Also the climate is not for all. And so on...

to Liisi: na aš žinau visai neblogą tinklapį, ten, žinoma, yra kai kas paimta iš tavo žinomo, bet galima rasti ir užsienio rašytojų darbų. Adresas: www.katekizmas.group.lt. Rekomenduoju perskaityti V. Mykolaičio-Putino "Altorių šešėly". Pats baigiu skaityti, labai patiko Arba pirmąją lietuvišką knygą (M. Mažvydo katekizmą) išleistą 1547 m. Na o tavo knygos tai nerandu.

How did you like my music (it is from album "folkšokas"). To put more or to look for different?

[Car]

How did you like my music (it is from album "folkšokas"). To put more or to look for different?

Interesting (I have no further opinion on it yet). Upload what's representive of Lithuanian music, I'd suggest.

[Liisi]

to Strigo: About living in Lithiania I dont know...It is difficult to find job even for people who have university education. Also the climate is not for all. And so on...

I think that there are no countries, which everyone loves or everyone hates (only if there is war or other serious problems, nobody can live a normal life). Everything depends on the person, on his values and needs. And what do you compare the country to. I like Lithuania a lot, I think it's a wonderful country. I would like to live there, if I didn't have a family here to think about. But I understand not everyone thinks like that and living there wouldn't suit everyone. Here in Finland a lot of things are well, but also lot of things that I miss here. And with climate and job situation it's the same here, or even worse...

Aš manau kad nėra šalių, kur visiems gera ar visiems bloga (tik ten, kur karas ar kitų rimtų problemų, niekas negali normaliai gyventi). Viskas priklauso nuo žmogaus, nuo jo vertybių ir poreikių. Ir (...nežinau kaip sakyti...). Man labai patinka Lietuva, manau, kad tai nuostabi šalys. Aš norėčiau ten gyventi, jei aš neturėčiau šeimos čia, apie ką galvoti. Bet aš suprantu, kad ne visi taip mano ir ne visiems tiktų gyvenimas ten. Čia Suomijoje daug kas labai gerai, bet ir daug kas man trūksta. Ir su klimatu ir darbo situacija čia kaip ir Lietuvoje, arba net blogiau...

Adresas: www.katekizmas.group.lt.

This address doesn't work, at least in my computer. Šitas adresas neveikia, bent mano kompiuteryje.

How did you like my music (it is from album "folkšokas"). To put more or to look for different?

Like Car already said, it's interesting. And beautiful too. I like it. Well, I find interesting and beautiful everything that's sung in Lithuanian ...

Kaip Car jau pasakė, įdomu. Ir gražu taip pat. Man patinka. Na, man įdomu ir gražu viskas, kas dainuojama lietuviškai ...

[Axystos]

The thing I like about this book is that the grammar is explained clearly

Could you give an example for the grammar part?

Well, in general I can say that they know how to use clear columns. For example, in the first chapter they introduce the verb ‘to be’ in lithuanian and they put everything in a clear column. Further, cases are introduced, and they put every ending under eachother. It might sound boring, but to me it’s pleasant and surveyable.

I heard a similar thing about Colloquial Icelandic and that makes me wonder if they really offer that package. Take a look at this commentary at Amazon site:

Paul Reynaud hat folgendes geschrieben:
I tried to order the CD version of this set (isn't that what's offered here..?) a week ago. Amazon sent out the cassette version. Sent that back, Amazon sent me a replacement--the cassette version again. When I requested a correct replacement, Amazon cancelled my order and informed my that due to problems "more widespread than expected" they couldn't send the set. I don't know what those widespread problems are and Amazon isn't telling. I suspect that they don't really offer a CD version, just the cassette. You might want to be cautious if you really want the CD version.

You could also simply copy everything that is on the cassettes to CD’s. This shouldn’t be illegal, because you’re copying it for your own use (right?).

Axystos.

[egidijus]

hi again, I've puted some new songs in my site one is from the same album, other is downloaded.
to Liisi: I agree, but I see you made couple mistakes in your text. Būtų skambėję labiau lietuviškai jei būtum parašiusi:
niekas negali normaliai gyventi tik ten, kur karas ar YRA kitų rimtų problemų.
na sakinio, kurio tu prašai išversti, nelabai suprantu, bet jei teisingai supratau... Ir žiūrint su kuo tu šalį lygini.
ne šalys (countrys), o šalis (country)
nelabai taisyklingas sakinys (Aš norėčiau ten gyventi, jei aš neturėčiau šeimos čia, apie ką galvoti)geriau "apie ka galvoti" nebūtų buvę.
turėjo būti: daug ko man trūksta.
nelietuviškai skamba ( Na, man įdomu ir gražu viskas, kas dainuojama lietuviškai) geriau būtų buvę jei būtų - gražu viskas, kas skamba lietuviškai.

the site does not work becouse I wrote incorrectly. It should be katekizmas.group.lt

[Luís]

One of the new volunteers from the EVS (European Voluntary Service) in my area is from Lithuania!
I was showing them around yesterday and so I got the chance to talk to her a lot. I learnt a bit about Lithuanian pronunciation and now I'm able to count to 10 and say a few sentences about myself
We also entered the domains of "bad words" and I was surprised that some of them are so similar to the Polish ones. I could guess the meaning straight away!
In fact, there seems to be quite a lot of things in Lithuanian similar to Polish. Even knowing the numbers in Polish helped me a lot memorize the Lithuanian ones.

[Luís]

Ok, I have a request

Would anyone be so kind to write down the Lithuanian sounds using the IPA or SAMPA (or in any other way, as long as it's accurate)? I have found some guides online but they don't seem to be very correct. For instance, they say I sounds like [i], but when I heard that girl speaking it seemed to me that I sounded like Polish y...
Also, what's the difference between A and Ą or between U, Ų and Ū? I thought one would be short and the other long, but it seems they all can be long. She couldn't tell me what the difference was at all. She gave an example with the words:

Mama
Mamą

The first word sounded to me to have 2 short [a] sounds.
I was expecting the second to have a short 'a' on the first syllable and a long one on the second, however she'd say both syllables in the 2nd word with long vowels... I got too confused...

[Liisi]

To Luís:

This is a bit difficult thing to explain, especially because I was never taught anything about accents, everything I know I learnt by myself (listening and reading). Unfortunately I don't know any IPA or SAMPA. (But I'd like to learn them! Do you have any suggestions, where and how I could do it?) Also I'm not good at writing pronounciation guides in English as Lithuanian is pronounced very similarly to my native Finnish. But I'll try to help a bit, I hope someone here will be able to tell more.

As you know already, some of the Lithuanian vowels are called short, some long. (For those who know Finnish: Lithuanian long vowels are the same as Finnish double vowels). They are as follows:

SHORT / LONG

a / ą
ė / ę e
i / į y
u / ū ų

Where there are two different letters for long vowels, they represent the same sound, you just have to memorize which ones appear in which words and word forms. Now you're asking, why two letters for each sound? Historical reasons... the letters with the "hooks" used to be nasal like in Polish and they are still called like that, nasal vowels.

The long vowels are pronounced the same way as the short ones, just longer.

The letter ė is pronounced differently form ę e. The latter ones resemble German/Swedish/Finnish ä, while ė is like e.

The letters a and e can be either long or short. They are long when stressed, in other positions they are short. But there is one thing that makes this even more complicated, there are three types of stress and only two of them make the letter a or e longer... sorry, I hope someone can explain this with more detail . But I think this is not so important for beginners anyway. I learned Lithuanian pronounciation by listening to my teacher only, I don't care about the different stress types, and Lithuanians can still understand me.

About i... I can't imagine how it can sound like Polish y, I thought there is no such sound in Lithuanian. I don't know about the dialects, though. Maybe egidijus can help with this?

[Luís]

Thanks for the explanations, Liisi!

I also thought there was no such sound as Polish y/ Russian ы in Lithuanian. I cannot assure you it's exactly the same, but it's at least very similar. When I was learning the numbers I was hearing this sound a lot (since most of them end in -i) and I asked what letter represented this sound. This girl (Eglė) told me it was 'i'. Having had a look at Omniglot.com before I was a bit surprised and asked her if 'i' was not supposed to sound [ i] (like Finnish i). She tells me that 'y' sounds like that and that 'i' has this closed, more back sound. I repeated these sounds several times together just to make sure I was understanding it well

Trys - very clear [ i] sound (as in Finnish).
keturi, penki, šeši, aštuoni, devyni - in all these cases the 'i' doesn't seem to sound like this.
Septyni - This was the best example for me. This word has both 'y' and 'i', so it was very good to notice the contrast.

I didn't really had a contact with words with 'i' in other positions inside words, so could this sound shift happen only when 'i' is at the end?

Btw, regarding a possible dialect, she is from Kaunas. And now that I mention it, how should you pronounce the diphthong 'au' in Lithuanian? Omniglot says it should be roughly as the sound in the word English 'now' but when I hear it from her it sounds to me as the sound in the English word 'low'.

[Fenek]

I also thought there was no such sound as Polish y/ Russian ы in Lithuanian. I cannot assure you it's exactly the same, but it's at least very similar. When I was learning the numbers I was hearing this sound a lot (since most of them end in -i) and I asked what letter represented this sound. This girl (Eglė) told me it was 'i'. Having had a look at Omniglot.com before I was a bit surprised and asked her if 'i' was not supposed to sound [ i] (like Finnish i). She tells me that 'y' sounds like that and that 'i' has this closed, more back sound. I repeated these sounds several times together just to make sure I was understanding it well

Trys - very clear [ i] sound (as in Finnish).
keturi, penki, šeši, aštuoni, devyni - in all these cases the 'i' doesn't seem to sound like this.
Septyni - This was the best example for me. This word has both 'y' and 'i', so it was very good to notice the contrast.

You know what? 18 months ago I met a Lithuanian girl named Eglė in a bus to Italy. She said she liked to travel a lot. Maybe it's the same girl? Please ask her if she was in Italy last year in April and if she worked on a boat before. If so, please pass my greetings to her

When Lithuanian girls taught me to count in Lithuanian, I didn't hear that final -i as Polish "y". To me, it was rather closer to Polish "i".

[Luís]

When Lithuanian girls taught me to count in Lithuanian, I didn't hear that final -i as Polish "y". To me, it was rather closer to Polish "i".

OK, but did you notice any difference between the 'y' and the 'i' in septyni or do you think both sound the same?


On this website about the Lithuanian language they say Y sounds like the 'i' in machine while I sounds like the i in sit. These 2 sounds are different. They're the sounds that make the difference in words like chip/cheap, ship/sheep, bitch/beach, etc. The sound in 'sit' is represented by [ I] in the IPA. If you look at the chart, this is something somewhere in between regular i and Polish y (though some books claim this is actually Polish y...). So after seeing this, I'm even more convinced that these 2 letters represent distinct sounds!
(There is a link to a sound file in that website, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work...)

You know what? 18 months ago I met a Lithuanian girl named Eglė in a bus to Italy. She said she liked to travel a lot. Maybe it's the same girl? Please ask her if she was in Italy last year in April and if she worked on a boat before. If so, please pass my greetings to her

The world isn't that small, is it?
I will ask her when I see her next time. I only know that she was in the Czech Republic last year. Don't know if she's ever been to Italy. However, I doubt they're the same person. The Lithuanian girl you met is probably older. This Eglė here is only 18, which would make her be just 16 or 17 by the time you met her...

[Fenek]

OK, but did you notice any difference between the 'y' and the 'i' in septyni or do you think both sound the same?

I can't remember how that word sounded

The world isn't that small, is it?

I don't know... Today I had a look at the members list and I accidentally noticed that an old friend of mine, whom I hadn't met for a couple of years, had joined UniLang

However, I doubt they're the same person. The Lithuanian girl you met is probably older. This Eglė here is only 18, which would make her be just 16 or 17 by the time you met her...

Oh, yes, it's probably not her.
I don't know if the name Eglė is popular or not. Maybe it's the most common Lithanian name

[Guest]

hi, I dont know where to begin, first of all if you would travel trough Lithuania you would see that every town or region has different dialect, your Eglė is from Kaunas so it explains every thing Well if you meet people which are from region of Kaunas, Vilnius and other east Lithuania places their language will not be very correct becouse they will say instead i-y, u-ū, becouse there are russian language influence to dialect. Speaking about words which are similar to polish (not all that sounds polish are polish) as you know in XVI century 400 years Lithuania was united with Poland and polish language also influenced lithuanian language.there was a big fight between these languages.
Talking about y there is such sound, it sounds like bee,lets say vynas(wine) and i is like litter(šiukšlės), like miškas. į sounds like y.
nasal letters(nosinės raidės) like ą,ę saunds longer than a,e.
ū and ų sounds like "true" in word jūra(sea)and daiktų.
lithuanian accent jumps in different cases like
Nominative Mamà
Genitive Mamõs
Dative Mãmai
Accusative Mãmą
Ablative Mamà
Locative Mamojè

ã is being said as ą
à like a
á like ą