When you greet a Lithuanian at his or her house, flat or say the front door of a restaurant, whatever you do, don’t shake hands across the threshold of the doorway. Yeah, that one surprised me too but I was brusquely corrected on it recently.
Now, of course, you can greet each other as your guest opens the door but the physical shaking of hands must be done either inside or outside the threshold. If you do it wrong – baaaad luck!
Same goes for kissing on the cheek with close friends. Either the person who is at home opening the door must step out through the door and past the threshold or the guest or guests have to come all the way inside before kisses can be shared. Same as a handshake – if you do it wrong, it’s bad luck. Who makes this stuff up, anyway? How do you kiss Raminta? Do you kiss on the left cheek first or right cheek first? Straight to the lips! But, really, traditionally. Really? With your girlfriend? With the girlfriend. Tradition – to the lips…oho…okay, something I didn’t notice…bad luck…like with the kissing…but if I didn’t see her for a little bit so on the right, on the left and then to the lips! I see, oh, cool, okay.
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On this lesson we’re going to stick with genitive declensions – had enough yet? No, you haven’t! - but this will be a relatively simple episode. A new word we’ll use today, amongst others, is the word for “price," as in the newspaper’s price.
Please repeat, prašom pakartoti…
kaina price
kaina a price
kaina the price
If a word ends in –tis or –dis then it has a slightly unusual declension in the genitive case or kilmininkas. To do this lesson we’ll have to learn some new vocabulary.
First, let’s start with a word we learned back in episode 25.
Amerikietis an American male
In the genitive a word that ends in –tis or “t-i-s" as this word does, changes to “-čio."
So, Amerikietis would change to Amerkiečio.
the American man’s name Amerikiečio vardas
the American man’s house Amerikiečio namas
the American man’s wife Amerikiečio žmona
A man from Chicago might be called a Chicagoan. A male from New York City might be called a “New Yorker." A male who’s from Vilnius - “Vilnietis"
the Vilnius man Vilnietis
the man from Vilnius Vilnietis
So, the “Vilnius man’s dog" would be…Vilniečio šuo
the Vilnius man’s car Vilniečio mašina
the Vilnius man’s name Vilniečio vardas
Vytis is a man’s name Vytis
Vytis’ daughter Vyčio duktė
Vytis’ house Vyčio namas
The word for hotel is viešbutis
viešbutis hotel
viešbutis hotel
viešbutis hotel
the hotel restaurant viešbučio restoranas
the hotel room viešbučio kambarys
the hotel restroom viešbučio tualetas
The word for newspaper is laikraštis
laikraštis newspaper
laikraštis the newspaper
laikraštis a newspaper
the newspaper’s price laikraščio kaina
the newspaper’s quality laikraščio kokybė
The word for “bird" is paukštis
paukštis bird
paukštis a bird
paukštis the bird
the bird’s color paukščio spalva
the bird’s name paukščio vardas
the bird’s house paukščio namas
The word for bicycle is dviratis
dviratis bicycle
dviratis a bicycle
dviratis the bicycle
the bicycle’s color dviračio spalva
the bicycle’s location dviračio vieta
the bicycle’s quality dviračio kokybė
Now let’s go over some words that end in –dis or “d – i – s."
The word for tree is medis
medis tree
medis a tree
medis the tree
the tree’s color medžio spalva
the tree’s location medžio vieta
the tree’s name medžio vardas
If we could…let’s talk about how you would name your aspen right in the front yard!
The word for pigeon or the month of April is balandis.
balandis pigeon
balandis the pigeon
balandis April
the pigeon’s color balandžio spalva
the pigeon’s location balandžio vieta
…on the roof, in the balcony…
an April day balandžio diena
The word for December is gruodis
gruodis December
gruodis December
gruodis December
a December day Gruodžio diena
a December morning Gruodžio rytas
a December afternoon Gruodžio vakaras
The word for watch or clock is laikrodis
laikrodis a watch
laikrodis a clock
laikrodis the wristwatch
the watch’s color laikrodžio spalva
the watch’s quality laikrodžio kokybė
the watch’s price laikrodžio kaina
…might be bad…