No comments about The History of the Lithuanian Language.

1 comments about MLS Easy Immersion Lithuanian Pro.

1. This single CD ROM for learning Lithuanian contains "courses" on 40 languages, so you can guess at the depth of material presented on each language. (This was not mentioned in the advert blurb.) And don't think this is a bargain, because you will need a "key" from the publisher to access other languages, which means more money for each. There are too many errors in translations, spelling, and pronounciations. For example, "soap" is translated as "soup." Or the word "poder" (which is Spanish), the title of part of a lesson, is then correctly conjugated from the Lithuanian verb "galeti." The software will not allow letters with a tail to be printed on the screen, which diminishes the usefulness of the program. The speaker does not seem to be Lithuanian; he pronounces the same word in a single lesson differently when there is no reason to do so. The teaching method is archaic. Also, there was supposed to be a CD so one might listen to the language while working or driving; there was none. Understandably there is a no return policy, which is probably the only way the publisher can force a sale, which is a wasted $40 for me, and a reluctant future buyer of internet-marketed products. There are free and better courses on the internet for those interested in learning Lithuanian.

No comments about Pimsleur Lithuanian : Learn to Speak and Understand Lithuanian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Compact) (Digital Audiobook) (Audiofy Audiobook Chip Solutions).

No comments about Easy Way to Lithuanian (audio CDs & text).

No comments about A Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German and Sclavonic Languages.

3 comments about A Short Grammar of Lithuanian.

1. This book is one of the few grammars of Lithuanian out there, and it helped me get a basic grasp of the nature and structure of the language. Lithuanian is an interesting language in that it resembles Sanskrit more than the other Indo-European languages in the rest of Europe. Hence, it is a highly inflected language that preserves many of the archaic features of classical Sanskrit, such as having seven noun cases, three numbers (single, dual, and plural), and six verb conjugations. Lithuanian has two sets of adverbs. The first set is used when the subjects of the main and subordinate clause refer to the same person; the second set is used when the subjects of the main and subordinate clauses are different. This is called a "switch-reference system." *

   Why Lithuanian is such a language isolate in Europe no-one really knows for sure, but it has been ascribed to the early settlement of the region by Indo-Aryan peoples from the east who brought an early form of Indo-European with them. There is a precedent to this in that it is thought that the inhabitants of present-day Latvia, which borders on Lithuania, are the only Caucasian people that have continuously inhabited their region of the Baltics for the last 3,000 years. Latvian is Lithuanian's closest relative. And there is archeological evidence that the Lithuanians are descended from the Baltic tribes that have inhabited the region since about the 11th millenium B.C.

   Speaking of Latvian, I have to include a funny note here about it. I had a Latvian friend and roommate in college, and it is one of the funniest languages you will ever hear spoken. For example, you will hear Latvian speakers sometimes say something that clearly sounds in English like "Sh_t is f_cked." I'm not kidding. The actual phrase in Latvian is more like "Sh_ttas ist f_ckts," but at normal speed it sounds like what I said. The word for binoculars is "keekeezers." A popular Latvian food is "peerugs," which are like bite-size piroshkis, but which sounds like something you'd get for your dog. "Gullet" is another popular dish, and it looks like it came from someone's gullet too. It's a gelatin-like dish made from boiling down beef bones, and is eaten with some mustard. It sounds and looks sort of disgusting but it tastes good.

   I have a funny story about Lithuanian, too. One of my father's friends grew up in Chicago, where there is a Lithuanian section. One time we were talking about languages, and he told me that the worst insult in the Lithuanian is, "Kaip dau sheek da shouda rukshtas pienna." At least that's what it sounded like in English. This translates as, "How's your a_s for blowing buttermilk?"

   Lithuanian has been called the most linguistically conservative language in Europe, and as I said, is considered something of a language isolate. However, it may not be as isolated as it at first appears, as the Gypsies speak a language known as Romansh, whose closest relative is thought to be Sanskrit, and Basque is the third language in modern Europe that appears to be closer to Sanskrit than to the other present-day European languages. Basque is a pretty strange language itself, being a so-called ergative language, unlike most Indo-European languages. In fact, Basque is the only ergative language in Europe. In ergative languages, the subject is marked with an agentive prefix or postfix, so that the direct object of a transitive verb has the same case as the subject of an intransitive verb. This is what is called the ergative case, and its case marker is different from the absolutive case for subjects of transitive verbs.

   Basque also has other unique features among the Indo-European languages. It lacks the passive voice, and another oddity is that there are no reflexive pronouns such as myself/himself/herself/ourselves/themselves, although it has the standard set of pronouns. In an interesting article on Basque, Jon Patrick, a professor of psycholinguistics, points out, "Generally it can be said that Euskara (or Basque) has a limited vocabulary but a comprehensive set of grammar rules that makes language generation a highly constructive/creative act, whereas English relies on an extensive vocabulary to provide a breadth of expression. To my mind this feature makes Euskara a more powerful language than English, for example, one word in Euskara can have up to 458,653 different forms just using up to 2 levels of recursion of the standard suffixes."

   But getting back to Lithuanian, today few people know that Lithuania had a thriving empire from the 9th to the 13th century that stretched from modern Lithuania to southern Russia. The present country is all that is left of this empire. For these reasons, Lithuanian as a language is more interesting than I had thought at first, so I ended up reading this grammar as result. Overall, this was a good introductory grammar, especially considering that there are only a few out there, although I would now like to find a comparative study that discusses and compares the language with Sanskrit, Romansch, and Basque and any of the other related languages that may exist.

   I had one final comment. Despite English and Lithuanian being very distantly related, it is still possible to find words that are obviously similar. For example, "senele" and "senelis" are the words in Lithuanian for grandfather and grandmother, respectively, which are suspiciously similar to the words "senile" and "senescence" in English. And the word "sunus" in Lithuanian is the word for "son." Considering that English and Lithuanian probably diverged 3,000-5,000 years ago or more, this is a pretty amazing resemblance.

   *I'm indebted to the UCLA Language Materials Project webpage for this description.




2. A SHORT GRAMMAR OF LITHUANIAN by Terje Mathiassen is exactly what its title suggests, a lightweight overview of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Lithuanian. It is similar to an installment in Routledge's "Essential Grammar" line.
   
   Unfortunately, the grammar is nearly entirely synchronic. I would imagine that most people in need of a Lithuanian grammar, especially one published by Slavica, are Indo-Europeanists who are interested in the historical development of Lithuanian. While Mathiassen's grammar occasionally mentions IE topics, they are essentially footnotes. So, beware, if you are into comparative Indo-European linguistics, this will not serve your needs. The typesetting is also poor, but one comes to accept this from Slavica publications.
   
   As a simple grammar for students of the modern language, however, it is one of the few resources available. The presentation of the accent and ablaut is admirable



3. The book seems comprehensive in its coverage of grammar, but not organized at all around the needs of the ordinary learner.
   
   Rather it seems directed towards the academic linquistic professional. As a result, it is very difficult for the ordinary learner to get the fundamentals from this book, possible, but difficult. Here is an example of why from page 49: "By heteroclitics can be understood either 1)suppletive paradigms (i.e., alternations of phonemically completely different allomorphs like for instance good:better in the English adjectival comparison or rebenok 'child', pl. deti in the Russian noun declension) or 2) paradigms where the nom. sg. stem deviates from the other stem forms in the paradigm or 3) paradigms where the sg. stem differs from that of the plural..." Most of us who want to learn to use a grammar to read or write the language could care less about "suppletive paradigms" yet the book is filled with such arcane language.
   
   Such professional jargon makes the book relatively useless and quite difficult to understand for the ordinary learner of Lithuanian. At the same time, if you skip this jargon and the rules for pronounciations, it is possible, though hard-slogging, to get the fundamentals of grammar from this book for learning to read or write Lithuanian.
   
   Having learned Latin from the textbooks of Allen and Greenough and such which were oriented to teaching grammar to those trying to learn the language, it is a bitter disappointment to pick up Mathiassen's book and wade through the jargon to try to figure out simple questions that ordinary language learners want to know about. This book is definitely not for such learners; it is not oriented to those who want to learn grammar in order to read or write the language.
   
   John Peters

1 comments about Talk Now! Lithuanian.

1. Overall, I think that they did a decent job of putting this language program together. However, I would have liked it if they would have put in a section that covered the alphabet.

No comments about A Comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Languages.

5 comments about Colloquial Lithuanian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Multimedia)).

1. I have been studying Lithuanian twice a week with a professional instructor now for 3 months. I own this text, as well as the Beginner's Lithuanian text by Dambriunas. The Colloquial Lithuanian has very useful exercises, and emphasizes the conversational forms and expressions over the tradional academic style employed in Beginner's Lithuanian. However, be forewarned. This Colloquial Lithuanian text is absolutely inaccessable for beginners -- it does not lay out the fundamentals, but instead stresses memorization and modelling. This is good in a way, but not at all useful unless you know some fundamentals already. Similarly, the audio tapes of C.L. move at an advanced speed. As my professor says, C.L. is a "second-year" coursebook. We use it sometimes for exercises, but the B.L. text is much better.

   By the way, the first reviewer should say "Vilniaus Universitetas" in the nominative, or "Vilniaus Universitete" in the locative. "Vilno Univeriteto" is simply wrong -- Beginner's Lithuanian can cure that mistake, Colloquial Lithuanian cannot.




2. This book gives a fairly deep introduction to the oldest living Indo-European language, Lithuanian. Spoken in the Baltic state of Lithuania it has remained almost unaffected by the changes that have occured in other Indo-European languagea over the last 3.000 years. For a linguist, this makes Lithuanian a very interesting language indeed and this book is a good introduction to it. At times the grammar explanations could be somewhat more far-reaching, but most aspects of grammar are dealt with in a constructive way and the book gives a quite extensice vocabulary.



3. I would be lying if I were to say that this book will make learning Lithuanian very easy. It cannot possibly do that.

   Lithuanian language is very archaic, very peculiar and very complex. What's more, there are too few paralels with modern European languages: unless you have some kind of linguistic background, the task will probably seem overwhelming. It is not like learning French or Spanish if you are an English-speaker.

   The book comes in Colloquial series (this is your first clue for not expecting too much); it has been reasonably well written and edited, especially considering relatively undeveloped tradition of Western-quality textbook writing in the Baltics.

   Frankly, one can do much worse than buying this.




4. This book is an excellent course. The book and audio guide are inseparable! However, be warned that the lithuanian language is not for the inexperienced in the world of linguistics.



5. Owned and tried to use this book to learn enough Lithuanian to "get by" when we visted this fall. It certainly is NOT a Berlitz type program and is not a good book or tape to use alone. It is almost impossible to learn to say, Hello, my name is.... using this program.
   
   My husband speaks "child" Lithuanian learned at his Grandmothers knee and he could not use this program.
   
   I did not find basic get-you-by Lithuanian that hard once I got in the country. Travelers can get by with basic language skills and most Lithuanians under 40 speak decent English. We got by but not thanks to this course.
   
   Not for travelers. May be helpful addition for language students who already speak fairly fluent conversational Lithuanian and want to dig deeper.

4 comments about Lithuanian: Learn to Speak and Understand Lithuanian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Language Program).

1. As with other Pimsleur language courses, this is a great way to pick up the correct pronunciation. Lithuanian is difficult for English speakers, and sounds different than many languages we're used to so these cassettes are even more helpful. It starts with very simple pronunciation, breaking words down into sounds and goes through various phrases and sentences good for travelers. It is all audio, no book really. I'm waiting for them to do a complete course in Lithuanian!



2. I have only been through the first 4 lessons...not quite half the way through, and I love it! It has been made so simple. The only thing I would add so far is a book of some type that one could reference the spellings of the words and phrases being taught. I am afraid I may be able to verbally communicate with people when I get to Vilnius, but may not be able to read directions, menus and such. This program is a wonderful way to learn how to "get around" with the Lithuanian language. I may not end up fluent in the language, but I will be able to ask someone if they understand English! It is quick and enjoyable!



3. The Pimsleur learning method is definately a winner for me. Although I had previously studied a little of the language structure, I seem to have raced through the cassettes, and have just started 'unit 9'.
   As an Englishman, I find the 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' bit a little tedious though. We don't say this in England, and during the many times that I've been to Lietuva, neither do they. Also, the conversations are conducted with people in the 'formal' manner. Whilst not confusing anyone, it would have been nice if the 'informal' forms were also given a mention, - i.e. as in French, 'vous' and 'tu', it is the same in Lithuanian.
   As someone else has already written, it would be better if the speakers would at least spell some of the words they are teaching. This is because many letters are 'palletalised' (softened) in Lithuanian, and so, for example, I can't easily tell if they are saying a 'b' or a 'p' for the word 'lunch' (phonetic - 'piatowta').
   Finally, I think my biggest gripe is that the commentator refers to the course as 'Pimsleur's Lithuanian One'. So far, I have not found 'Lithuanian Two'. It's a good start, but you could be left high and dry, with nowhere to progress.



4. I don't know if you've ever tried any of the other Pimsleur tapes - but I find them to be dreadfully monotonous and extremely basic. I have been studying Russian for several years and had the misfortune to listen to their Russian tape. It practically sent me screaming out of the room. It spent 30 minutes going over the dialogue that is usually covered by page one of a standard Russian textbook. If you expect to have an elementary-level conversation with a Lithuanian parrot - then this course might be the one for you!

   No, seriously, if you want to work on basic pronounciation and rudimentary listening skills (listening to people with waaaay above average pronounciation skills) - then go ahead and buy the tapes. But you'll be stuck using the very basic phrases that they teach you. Without an understanding of Lithuanian grammar, you won't be able to come up with phrases on your own.