In the United States, I have four relatives who speak Lithuanian whom I communicate with on a monthly basis, and one I speak to daily. Not one of them thought to warn me it would be so ridiculously hard. Thanks, dad. I studied Spanish for 9 years, I am totally down with conjugating verbs, polite vs. impolite, and a gazillion tenses, but this idea of declension, wtf? Seriously, there are 7 different endings to put on nouns AND their accompanying adjectives just to give them a relationship to the verb!?!
Lucky for me, my teacher is pretty awesome, and although it is a university course, she is not afraid of things like sentence strips, bingo, and word walls. I recognize good teaching when I see it. Even adults need a break from grammar textbooks and writing exercises – I’ll play hangman any day.
I’ve come a long way in just a week. I can understand a lot more in everyday conversations, and I’m not so afraid to speak in shops, restaurants, etc. It’s been great to expand my diet from saltibarscai and alus. I am not kidding myself that I’ll ever be fluent in this language, but maybe, maybe if I keep at it, and try this again next summer, I’ll be able to walk into the post office and ask for 7 stamps to send cards to the US or ask Dede Vytautas about his paintings.
Lithuanian is a phonetic language. Since it is so old, there are currently a lot of “international” words, as they call them. Of course, these words are spelled in the Lithuanian way, although the pronunciation remains pretty much the same. For example, my cousin, Andrius, is a dizaineris. So far, DŻO[1] is my favorite. Any guesses on what American name that is the Lithuanian spelling of? The masculine form always ends in s and they love to add it to foreign celebrities’ names to let them flow better in tabloid sentences. Bradas Pitas always makes me chuckle, and I do wish I was here years ago when Laura was to watch Shaquilas O’Nealas in the NBA finals.
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