Oct 31, 2007
Just how similar are the Baltic States to one another? Not
as much as one might think.
The Baltic States are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. For
starters all three speak different languages and they can’t
understand each other. The Latvian and Lithuanian languages
were the same language many hundreds of years ago, but not
today. The Estonian language is completely different;
it’s related to the language of Finland or Finnish.
The Estonians and Latvians are mostly Protestant Christians but the
Lithuanians are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. The Lithuanian
people are also considered to be the warmest and friendliest people
of the three nation region.
And by the way, any time somebody says Lithuania is a small
country…just gently remind them it’s not that small, it is, after
all, larger than Switzerland.
For quite a few lessons to come, we’re going to be going through
all the ins and outs of the genitive case or kilmininkas.
After we finish this series of episodes you should be a real pro at
this declension.
In theory anyway.
As we touched on in episode 0022, when we use the word “from" or iš
we need to use kilmininkas.
So, let’s take the word “England" or Anglija. This is the
nominative case or vardininkas. The word for England in
kilmininkas is Anglijos.
If we say “from England" we say iš Anglijos. Remember that
dictionaries use vardininkas or the nominative case. So, you
will find Anglija in a dictionary but you won’t find Anglijos.
Lithuanian nouns are either masculine or feminine. In the
nominative, feminine nouns mostly end in either –a or –ė.
Feminine nouns that end in –a change to –os.
Feminine nouns that end in –ė change to –ės.
We also use the genitive case or kilmininkas when we talk about
possession, such as, Raminta’s book, Sandra’s name, or Lithuania’s
capital. You can also look at it as the book of Raminta, the
name of Sandra or the capital of Lithuania.
For today’s lesson we’ll only focus on feminine nouns.
So, let’s start off with Raminta’s book. The word for book is
knyga.
The –a at the end of Raminta changes to –os. So, Raminta’s
book translates as Ramintos knyga.
Please repeat and say the Lithuanian – Out Loud… Prašom
pakartoti…
Raminta’s
book
Ramintos knyga
Sandra’s
book
Sandros knyga
Austėja’s
book
Austėjos knyga
Kristina’s
book
Kristinos knyga
Great, now let’s do some nouns that end in –ė.
Here are some female names in Lithuanian in kilmininkas.
Please repeat… Prašom pakartoti…
Eglė changes to Eglės
Agnė changes to Agnės
Dovilė changes to Dovilės
Ramunė changes to Ramunės
So, please repeat…
Eglė’s
book
Eglės knyga
Agnė’s
book
Agnės knyga
Dovilė’s
book
Dovilės knyga
Ramunė’s
book
Ramunės knyga
Alright, study hard because on the next lesson we’ll dig even deeper into kilmininkas and it’ll be a more challenging lesson. To see Raminta's article in the newspaper Amerikos Lietuvis, go here: http://www.alietuvis.com/391/vakaru_lt.html