Comments on: Lithuanian directions

By: Randy (@Yearlyglot)

Randy (@Yearlyglot) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:32:41 +0000

I should clarify. No GOOD phrasebooks. I found one really bad one.

By: lyzazel

lyzazel — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:03:06 +0000

No phrasebooks? Well, that gives me a business idea, huh…

By: Randy (@Yearlyglot)

Randy (@Yearlyglot) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:23:15 +0000

Doh! I knew there would be some errors in this one. This information is getting harder and harder to find. There aren't easy phrasebooks for Lithuanian the way there are for so many more popular languages. :)

I have a feeling that you're going to correct even more mistakes next week when I do verbs! :)

By: lyzazel

lyzazel — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:34:42 +0000

Some corrections:
vakarinis -> vakarai
teisus -> tiesiai
priekinis -> į priekį
tolimas -> toli

(you had to have adverbs there and not adjectives, plus some of the adjectives were not correct)

As for Russian, people over forty speak it in the country and a lot of people originating from the capital (Vilnius) speak it as well as a few little cities where you're unlikely to go to anyway.. Young people do not speak it. It is nowhere near popular now and it is unconceivable for natives to use Russian as oppose to Lithuanian in their everyday lives. The best big city to practice is probably Kaunas, for only the old generation remembers Russian and not that well anyway and nobody it is rear to hear foreign languages spoken in there anyway.

By: Randy (@Yearlyglot)

Randy (@Yearlyglot) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:21:25 +0000

Also, I forget to point out in my reply that this is also meant to be a real-world test of my 10 Things list. I plan to report back on what worked and what didn't, and update the list as necessary.

By: Randy (@Yearlyglot)

Randy (@Yearlyglot) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:25:55 +0000

My understanding is that anyone who was around during the Soviet times speaks Russian, and anyone who grew up in Lithuania afterwards likely speaks English, so in either case I'm fine.

However, since I have a Lithuanian heritage, it is important to me to learn about the language. This isn't simply a pleasure trip, but a chance for my father and I to learn about our family's roots. And for me, that includes the language -- which I will continue to use here in Chicago after the trip is over.

Not to mention the fact that people respond better if you speak to them in their language, rather than making them deal with you in one they don't normally use.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:28:29 +0000

How common is Russian in Lithuania? It's a former Soviet satellite so I would suspect that most people know it--if it's anything like Ukraine where you'll actually see people using Russian much, much more on a day-to-day basis then you'd actually be better of learning Russian. I learned this from a Ukrainian I talked to--the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, but unofficially it's Russian: people use Russian for their regular daily communication and there are Ukrainians who don't even speak Ukrainian, but EVERYONE speaks Russian.

Between this and similar situations to varying degrees in other former Soviet satellites, I determined that if I'm interested in traveling to multiple Eastern European countries with no particular emphasis on any one (I am) then, by far, the most useful language to learn would be Russian. I was just wondering what the deal was in Lithuania.

Oddly, I've heard that now English is actually slightly more prevalent than Russian in Eastern Europe, including the Balkans, and that if you don't speak the local language then English is the most useful language to know.

Cheers,
Andrew