Customer Reviews

Beginner's Lithuanian (Beginner's (Foreign Language))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 While some reviewers here construe the text as hopelessly outdated, I have a different view.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.

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.

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".

I have used this book for instructing my classes for many years and have found it to be the reference for most things used and issues raised in my class. Both beginners and advanced students have found it most useful and beneficial. Gera gramatikos ir praktikos knyga!!

I have read the reviews for the book, and was quite disappointed. I myself am a Lithuanian, and I have been teaching Lithuanian for the past three months to an English speaker. From what i have seen published, even recently, there is not any other book that would cover grammar and vocabulary as well as this one does. Most likely, i would arrange the topics differently, but over all, this is a great book for a guided or independent study of Lithuanian language.

The is the reprint of "Introduction to Modern Lithuanian" that I have used for many years. Still the best text available. Also, get the Routledge "Lithuanian Dictionary," actualy three books in one.

These two books will be an excellent "Lithuanian Language Library" at your
fingertips.

I received this book as a starting place for my year long study of Lithuanian with the ultimate goal of going there for my Master's Degree, which will be taught in English, but I figure most of my fellow students will be locals. Despite the lackluster reviews and other grumblings, I found this book to be an excellent beginning text. It stresses proper grammar and does include many spoken phrases. I have previously bought Jurgita Batushaityte's Lithuanian Dictionary & Phrasebook and found it quite lacking. Perhaps good in a pinch while stopping through the country on a whirlwind tour of the Baltics. I visited Estonia for about 3 months over the course of 2 years and enjoyed the experience and it whet my appetite for more. I have yet to go to Lithuania, but when I do I will stay for a year or two and need to know how to communicate in letters as well as speech. This book accomplishes that goal very well. I also was able to grab a copy of the Po Truputi CD-ROM recently, which is only in Lithuanian and includes many phrases and words pronounced by native speakers.

Although some of the dialogs and readings could use updating, this text is thorough enough for a serious language student. I had previously tried learning from "Colloquial Lithuanian" by Ramoniene & Press, but found it lacked depth, which led me to this book. It has a solid reference section, with the exception of the dictionary, which is a bit thin. I especially liked the pronunciation section which really helps you to "get" the sounds that are unique to the language.

Lithuanian is a very complex, difficult language to learn. This book gives some very good guidance; however, if you are trying to learn the language on your own, I think you might run into problems. If you know someone who speaks fluent Lithuanian who can help you and explain things further, this book is great!

As a native speaker of Lithuanian, I am not terribly impressed with this textbook. It looks like a classical old-fashioned language teaching methodology, something like "high school Latin" sort of thing. I have a similar experience of learning English at school from a similar type of textbook, and this experience did not seem like a whole load of fun, to say the least... What you find in the textbbook is the oversimplified, "sterilized" version of Lithuanian, which although grammatically correct and fine for most formal occasions, will be very different from what you will actually hear if you walk in the streets of Siauliai. I think the learners would do better with the teaching course which gives some natural language, natural examples, taken from the real-life situations. In this textbook, however, the sterilized version of Lithuanian will take you no further than highly formal version of Language of e.g. government meetings or radio news... As I've already mentioned, I had exactly the same experience while learning English, so you can trust my words:)