Lithuanian Out Loud 0072 Beg - Kalbėti To Speak

Okay, so are you ready to do another lesson?  Let’s work with energy, with energy please!  Woohoo!  I’m excited too!  

Hi there, I’m Jack and I’m Raminta and welcome back to Lithuanian Out Loud where we offer the world the Lithuanian language.  Today we’re in the month of April which in Lithuanian is balandis.

The common word in Lithuanian for horse is arklys.  According to the Wikipedia page entitled, Ašvieniai, another word for horse is ašvienis.  

Is that true?  You know I – first time hear that word.  Aha, interesting, the first time you heard this word, huh?  It’s like really old maybe or something – you’d never understand what it…

In the old Lithuanian religion ašvieniai are twin spirits carved into the roof of some houses to protect the house from evil spirits.  Sometimes ašvieniai are presented as the twin horses who pull Saulė’s chariot through the sky.

(note: in this episode we describe angliškai, lietuviškai, ispaniškai, itališkai, etcetera, as adjectives, when in fact, they are adverbs.  Thanks to David of Boston for catching the error. We apologize for the mistake.)

Kalbėti is the infinitive or base verb, to speak, kaip pasakyti lietuviškai?  How do you say it in Lithuanian? prašom pakartoti, please repeat…

I speak                                                                aš kalbu

you speak (familiar)                                              tu kalbi

he speaks                                                             jis kalba 

she speaks                                                            ji kalba

we speak                                                              mes kalbame

you speak                                                             jūs kalbate

you all speak                                                        jūs kalbat

all of you speak                                                    jūs kalbate

they speak (all males or mixed male/female group)  jie kalba

they speak (all females)                                         jos kalba

Let’s go over some languages. 

prašom pakartoti, please repeat…

Lithuanian                                                           lietuviškai

English                                                                angliškai

Spanish                                                               ispaniškai

ar tu nori kalbėti ispaniškai? (do you want to speak spanish?)

aš noriu mokėtis ispanų kalbos. (I want to learn spanish)

Malaysian                                                           malaiziškai

French                                                                 prancūziškai

Chinese                                                              kiniškai

Russian                                                                rusiškai

German                                                              vokiškai

Polish                                                                 lenkiškai

Japanese                                                             japoniškai

Dutch                                                                 olandiškai

Italian                                                                itališkai

Latvian                                                              latviškai

Swahili                                                               svahiliškai

Croatian                                                             kroatiškai

Portuguese                                                         portugališkai

Arabic                                                                arabiškai

Turkish                                                             turkiškai

Indonesian                                                         indoneziškai

The words angliškai, lietuviškai, ispaniškai, itališkai, etcetera, are actually adjectives.  Angliškai means, “in the English way.”  Lietuviškai means, “in the Lithuanian fashion or style.”

In other words, to say, aš kalbu angliškai, literally means, I speak in the English way.  Aš kalbu itališkai – I speak in the Italian style.

The adjectives lietuviškas, angliškas, itališkas, etcetera, describe something as being in the Lithuanian, English or Italian style.  For example, a Lithuanian name – lietuviškas vardas, a Lithuanian (style) house - lietuviškas namas, an English (style) automobile – angliškas automobilis.

Can you say, “Italian word” – “itališkas žodis?”

Yeah, you can say – yes - itališkas žodis - itališkas žodis

When we say turkiškai, olandiškai, or ispaniškai, we’re saying, in effect, in the Turkish way or style, in the Dutch manner or style, in the Spanish manner or style.  When we refer to the Lithuanian language as lietuviškai or English as angliškai, we’re using the plural of lietuviškas and angliškas because many people speak in the Lithuanian way or in the English manner.

Nicely done, nicely done, you speak excellent English.  Oh, yeah, I know, thank you.

So, lietuviškas, angliškas, itališkas and ispaniškas are changed to lietuviškai, angliškai, itališkai and ispaniškai because many people speak these languages.  We’ll go over more on the rules of using adjectives in future episodes.  The important thing to remember here is that when we say, aš kalbu lietuviškai, we’re not exactly saying, I speak the Lithuanian language, we’re literally saying, I speak in the Lithuanian fashion. 

Great, now let’s combine some languages with the verb kalbėti. To review the question word, ar, please listen to episode 0007. prašom pakartoti, please repeat…

what languages do you speak?                 kaip jūs kalbate?

O, Raminta, prašom kalbėti lietuviškai, kaip tu kalbi? (Oh, Raminta, please speak Lithuanian, how do you speak?)

aš kalbu lietuviškai

pakartoti prašom aš kalbu lietuviškai

Ah, by saying, kaip tu kalbi, is this not saying, what languages do you speak, or not?  No, not really, no, no, no, no, no.  You would say – you would translate – kaip jūs kalbate? – how do you speak?  Aha, kaip jūs kalbate, how do you speak?  Yeah.  So, what do you think about this translation?  What languages do you speak, kaip jūs kalbate?  No, it’s not correct to tell the truth..  But, it’s not that bad, you know, kaip jūs kalbate, when you – I don’t know, it’s not like really bad.  So,

what languages do you speak?        kaip jūs kalbate?

now, just to be clear, this is not a literal translation.  Literally we’re saying, “how do you speak?”

I speak English                             aš kalbu angliškai

what languages do you speak?       kaip jūs kalbate?

I speak Chinese                            aš kalbu kiniškai

I speak Malaysian                         aš kalbu malaiziškai

I speak English and Lithuanian      aš kalbu angliškai ir lietuviškai

I speak Spanish and Lithuanian     aš kalbu ispaniškai ir lietuviškai

I speak French and Russian           aš kalbu prancūziškai ir rusiškai

I speak Indonesian                        aš kalbu indoneziškai

do you speak German?                  ar tu kalbi vokiškai?

do you speak Polish?                     ar tu kalbi lenkiškai?

do you speak Chinese?                  ar tu kalbi kiniškai?

does he speak Japanese?               ar jis kalba japoniškai?

does he speak Dutch?                    ar jis kalba olandiškai?

does he speak Indonesian?             ar jis kalba indoneziškai?

does she speak Malaysian?            ar ji kalba malaiziškai?

Great, on an upcoming episode we’ll study kalbėti some more.

(Antik the dog barking – a pug)  Oh, my goodness!  Antikai, stop it – at the end of the lesson!  Ateik čia!  (come here)

Nuostabu!  Wonderful!  You made it to the end of another episode!  Nuostabu! And now Raminta will teach you how to say,

“I’m gonna kill you!” aš tave užmušiu! (jokingly to the dog)

Alright!  That’s it for today!  Thanks for the download!  If you got anything out of this lesson please leave us a review on our iTunes page.

To leave us comments call our voicemail number that’s in the title of every show or call our Skype voicemail at Lithuanianoutloud – that’s one word, and leave us a message there. If you’d like to see the Lithuanian spelling of any word in this series just go to WWW dot Lithuanian dot L I B S Y N dot com.  If you’d like to get these episodes every time a new one is available just go to iTunes and do a search for Lithuanian Out Loud and click subscribe.  It’s completely free.  But, if you don’t want to subscribe on iTunes, just send us an email asking us to alert you every time a new episode hits the internet.  And feel free to make copies of our episodes, put them on cds and pass them out to your friends. Thanks to CCMixter.org, Ditto Ditto and Vieux Farka Toure for the podcast music. Thanks for tuning in, tell your friends about us, we’ll see you on the next episode of Lithuanian Out Loud. I’m Jack and I’ve never met a Lithuanian I didn’t like.  Viso gero!  Sudie!

Ašvieniai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C5%A1vieniai

http://www.Lithuanian.Libsyn.com Skype voicemail:  Lithuanianoutloud email Raminta and Jack at: [email protected]  http://www.vieuxfarkatoure.com/ http://www.ccmixter.org/