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Learning the language

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jasminekidwell

11/23/2015 04:53 EST

Hi, firstly I apologise for the drawn out post but wanted to give as much background as possible!

My husband is Lithuanian and we have been together little under 3 years and married for just over 1, when we first started dating we were working together in my home town in a factory and there were many other Lithuanian workers so I plstarted to pick up the language easily, since we no longer work there and do not have the same need to speak the language, I have become somewhat lazy in my quest to learn his native language, speaking with his family is difficult as they all remain in Lithuania and their English is very limited, I tend to avoid communicating with them due to embarrassment, I know basic words and phrases but not enough to compile sentences or hold a conversation, I can understand a lot of what is being said but mainly cannot respond. I guess that is down to not being confidant and worrying about my pronunciation etc, So my question is, has anyone else been in a similar situation and what did you do to learn, I have today purchased a English/Lithuanian dictionary but have you found any intense courses/programmes to help? Any advise will be great fully received!!
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JRVilnius

11/23/2015 07:45 EST

Search iTunes for Pimsleur Lithuanian, they only do the one course of 10 units from what I can tell which is great shame, but those 10 units are well worth the circa £26 I paid for them!

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bigEd

12/14/2015 15:33 EST

Good old amazon.com has a variety of them available for not too much $$$. Check the purchasers ratings on them as well. THe rest is practical application.

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sbdagape

12/15/2015 11:46 EST

Hi Jasmine, It's been a long time since we have communicated on this forum. I now live in Lithuania and understand exactly how you are feeling. I, too, understand far more than I can say, and was embarrassed and found it difficult to try to speak to people in my limited Lithuanian. However, here's what I found out. Lithuanian's are extremely forgiving of bad Lithuanian. As I go about my daily business (shopping or whatever), I often begin by saying "Atsiprašau, bet aš nekalbu daug lietuviskai". Then I look at the person rather sheepishly and try my best to say what I want or need. They ALWAYS say, "you speak good Lithuanian!". Trust me, I don't. My point is that the Lithuanian people know how very difficult the language is to learn and really appreciate and respect those who try to learn it. Also, in this day and age, I ofteb detect a bit of embarrassment on their part because they do not know English (the new world language). Just push through it and you will be surprised how well things go.
As for the learning materials, My favorite is "Colloquial Lithuanian" by Meilute Ramoniene. It has audio to go with it. The dialogues are very useful and practical and has a fabulous section on pronounciation. I listened to the dialogues over and over again while driving to work and they really stuck in my head. The other book I like, more for grammar and declension is "Beginner's Lithuanian" by Leonardas Dambriunas. However, this book does not have audio. Oddly enough, the other thing I use alot is google translate, just to look up words or phrases that I use alot and commit them to memory. However, check these with your husband because google translate is notoriously wrong. Best of luck to you!

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