Beginner's Lithuanian (Beginner's (Foreign Language)) [Paperback]

Leonardas Dambriunas (Author), William R. Schmalstieg (Author), Antanas Klimas (Author)

Book Description

Series: Beginner's (Foreign Language) | Publication Date: October 1998

This book includes 40 lessons, a complete grammar section, conversation sections, etc.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

L Dambriunas, W R Schmalstieg, A Klimas

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078180678X
• ISBN-13: 978-0781806787
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,017,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Lithuanian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still your best resource for learning Lithuanian., January 27, 2006

By 

Dagfinn Aaslid "Lazyviking" (Vardø, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginner's Lithuanian (Beginner's (Foreign Language)) (Paperback)

I used this book to learn Lithuanian before going there to spend five years studying culture and traditions. Over time I have become familiar with (I believe) all alternatives for studying Lithuanian. Despite its age, this classic method still remains the best.

There was one thing missing: recordings to go with the readings and exercises. But this is no longer so! Five hours of .mp3 files indexed to the full text can be downloaded at a nominal charge. IMHO these make the book much more suited for sustained self-study. There is also a free online Lithuanian-English dictionary:
www.afoto.com/lith

To hear a sample and see the interface between the book and the recordings, take a look at: afoto.com/lith/lith.htm

Lithuanian is not an easy language to learn. But I found that by listening and reading regularly for half an hour mornings and evenings over a period of a year I was able to have basic conversations with people once there.

There is one final reason to choose this book. While some reviewers here construe the text as hopelessly outdated, I have a different view. The authors are scholars with a long and sustained grounding in traditional Lithuanian life. As you immerse yourself in the stories and conversations you are also getting an intimate cultural encounter. This dimension is, as a rule, completely overlooked in more "modern" methods. It has been my experience that awareness of these "non-discursive" dimensions is what opened the doors to experiences and friendships I otherwise would have missed.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for linguists, but maybe not really for beginners, November 18, 2003

By 

Amir Aharoni (Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginner's Lithuanian (Beginner's (Foreign Language)) (Paperback)

I study Lithuanian in the University - my major is Structural Linguistics and it is well-known that Lithuanian is an important language with many interesting and ancient "grammatical categories" which are rare or non-existent in other languages.

This is the book my professor recommended, and for a good reason - it indeed gives attention to grammar in each of the forty lessons and towards its end you'll find: an extensive 62-page "Grammatical Appendix"; a short, but useful vocabulary; and some examples of Lithuanian poetry, prose and newspaper language. All of the above are of great help to linguists, however the abundance of complex grammatical and linguistics terms, such as "instrumental case", "pluperfect tense" and "alternative optative formations" may scare off a "casual" learner. On the other hand, there are not so many of them, and probably most people who study this language have a good reason to do it and will take the challenge.

Another small disadvantage is that it is a paperback edition, which is unfortunate, because it is one of those books i would like to keep proudly on my "linguist's bookshelf", right next to my Latin and Old German dictionaries, for many years for future reference. It does have a nice painting on the cover, though, which is not present in the old (1970's) hardcover editions.

The last problem is that it is probably a reprinted edition, and some mistakes here and there seem to be fixed by handwriting and not by actually printing the letters (it is possible that they had trouble with Lithuanian fonts, which are a little different from standard Latin and didn't have the means to reset the whole book with more modern technology.)

All in all - if you are looking at this book, you probably know what you want, so these little disadvantages shouldn't trouble you, because you won't find a better reference for Lithuanian in English.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It'll Work in a Pinch, July 30, 2001

By 

EvoSci - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginner's Lithuanian (Beginner's (Foreign Language)) (Paperback)

As somone who has worked as a professional linguist, I find the book adequate, but very poorly organized and difficult to use. On the other hand, it's about the best that's out there. Unfortunately.

As a linguist, my first priority is to grasp the basic structure of a language so that if I run across a word, phrase, or article, the most I'll need in order to understand it is a good dictionary. This book only gives up that kind of knowledge very grudgingly.

Instead of explaining basic grammar rules, the text relies heavily on examples. While verb conjugation and noun declension are mentioned in the first three chapters, along with a small handfull of examples, the basic rules governing these things are not explained. No matter how commonly exceptions to the rules occur in any given language, there will still be basic rules of grammar. This is where instruction should begin, with the complexity of phases being built up as new rules are introduced. Exceptions can always be dealt with in later chapters. Instead this text mentions grammar forms without explanation, then tries to teach declined nouns and conjugated verbs as seperate vocabulary.

I think the book's authors may have been trying for a balance between in-depth grammar and giving the student handy phrases to be used from day one. Unfortunately they came up with a very poor compromise that gives little of either in any useful way.

In conjunction with classroom instruction by a competent teacher, I think the book is adequate. However, as an aid to learning Lithuanian on one's own, it is unnecessarily difficult to use, cumbersome, and incomplete.

As to the criticism of other reviewers that it is too outdated and stiff, personally I prefer an instructional text that is dense and to the point. As someone who learns languages quickly and aggressively, that fits my style. However, as a teacher I agree that a text that is more fun would make the process easier for most students, especially those with little or no experience in learning languages. Unfortunately this book really fits neither my style nor the more enjoyable style of modern laguage texts.

In a very small field of options, this book is probably the best. With a good bit of effort on the student's part, it is usable. However, it is far from being what I would call "good".