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Hi there, I’m Jack and I’m Romas and welcome back to Lithuanian Out Loud.  Here we are in a new month!  In English this month is called February.  In English we capitalize the first letter of the month, in Lithuanian you generally don’t.  The word February comes from the ancient Roman culture and the fact that in this month they held a purification ceremony or a februa.  The Lithuanian word for this month is vasaris, it comes from the word for summer or vasara.  In the month of vasaris the weather is starting to improve.  The days are longer, the nights are shorter, and people are starting to think forward to summer.

The next time the sun warms your face imagine you’re being blessed by the Lithuanian sun goddess Saulė.  Saulė is the Lithuanian word for the Sun.  According to Britannica Online and Wikipedia, Saulė is also one of the most powerful and well known gods in the old Lithuanian religion.  She’s the goddess of life, nature and fertility.  Saulė is the protector of all who have had misfortune, especially orphans since she is the only substitute for a mother’s warmth.  As a matter of fact, pasaulis is the Lithuanian word for the world, or the place under the sun.  Souls of the dead travel with Saulė to a place which was believed to be located behind the horizon.  It was considered an offense to point at the sun or moon and when Saulė is shining in the sky, the bad spirits sleep.

The sun and the moon were husband and wife but in the end they divorced because the moon couldn’t be faithful to his wife.  The unfaithful moon fell in love with the daughter of Saulė and Perkūnas – Aušrinė.  Saulė is associated with a stag that has nine horns and you can see this in folk art clothing and ornaments.

But, how does Saulė move through the sky?  Every day she rides on a chariot with copper wheels pulled by horses who never get tired and never sweat.  In the evening Saulė washes the horses in the sea while she sits on a hill holding the reigns in her hands.  Because the sun is clearly responsible for the growth of plants, Lithuanian farmers prayed to Saulė at sunrise and sunset.  A harmless green snake, or žaltys, was a special favorite of Saulė.  It’s good luck to have a žaltys in your house and extremely bad luck to kill one.

So Romas, Raminta told me that žaltys is a way of cussing in a very soft way?  Yeah, kind of like this – O! Žaltys!  Yeah, that’s a very soft swear word.

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On the last lesson we learned į kairę, to the left and į dešinę, to the right.  These are examples of the accusative case or galininkas.  Today we’ll begin a series of episodes focused on the accusative declension.  As a matter of fact, episodes 40 and 43 were examples of the accusative case.

When we use the preposition, į or, to, we’re indicating motion or movement to something or someplace.  We’re not talking about where something is located.  We’re only talking about going to someplace.  To do this we have to use galininkas.  Galininkas is extremely common in Lithuanian and we’ll use it in other ways on future episodes.  This is only one way to use it.

The accusative case or galininkas breaks down very easily like this; a word that ends in…

-a changes to –ą nosinė 
-ė changes to –ę nosinė
-as changes to –ą nosinė
-is changes to –į nosinė
-ys changes to –į nosinė
-us changes to -ų nosinė

Here are some examples of galininkas using words we’ve already used in previous episodes.

Kaip pasakyti lietuviškai?  How do you say it in Lithuanian?

Lithuania or Lietuva changes to Lietuvą
      to Lithuania, translates as, į Lietuvą
the right or dešinė changes to dešinę
      to the right → į dešinę
the left or kairė changes to kairę
      to the left → į kairę
the city or miestas changes to miestą
      to the city → į miestą
Akropolis, the mall north of Vilnius, changes to Akropolį
      to Akropolis → į Akropolį
the room or kambarys changes to kambarį
      to the room → į kambarį
Vilnius changes to Vilnių
      to Vilnius → į Vilnių

So, there we have the basics of galininkas.  Let’s go over some more examples.
please repeat…prašom pakartoti…

the university                   universitetas 
a university                      universitetas
to the university               į universitetą
to the university, please    į universitetą, prašom

the airport                       oro uostas
an airport                        oro uostas
to the airport                   į oro uostą
to the airport, please        į oro uostą, prašom

the cathedral                   katedra
a cathedral                      katedra
to the cathedral               į katedrą
to the cathedral, please    į katedrą, prašom

the street                        gatvė
a street                           gatvė
to the street                    į gatvę
to the street, please         į gatvę, prašom

the museum                   muziejus
a museum                      muziejus
to the museum               į muziejų
to the museum, please    į muziejų, prašom

the church                     bažnyčia
a church                        bažnyčia
to the church                  į bažnyčią
to the church, please       į bažnyčią, prašom

the store or the shop       parduotuvė
a store or a shop             parduotuvė
to the store                    į parduotuvę
to the shop, please          į parduotuvę, prašom

the bookstore                 knygynas
a bookstore                    knygynas
to the bookstore              į knygyną
to the bookstore, please   į knygyną, prašom

an ale house                   alinė (or) aludė
the pub                          alinė (or) aludė
to the pub                      į alinę (or) į aludę
to the pub, please           į alinę, prašom (or) į aludę, prašom

Sidney, (Australia)          Sidnėjus 
Sidney                           Sidnėjus  
to Sidney                       į Sidnėjų
to Sidney                       į Sidnėjų

coffee shop                    kavinė
coffee shop                    kavinė
to the coffee shop           į kavinę
to the coffee shop           į kavinę, prašom

a lounge                        svetainė
a lounge                        svetainė
to the lounge                 į svetainę
to the lounge                 į svetainę, prašom

the basement                  rūsys
the basement                  rūsys
to the basement              į rūsį
to the basement              į rūsį

now we’ll say a word in vardininkas and you say į and add galininkas or the accusative declension.  For example we’ll say, restoranas, and you reply, į restoraną.  Here we go!

restoranas                      į restoraną
kavinė                           į kavinę
miestas                          į miestą
Kaunas                          į Kauną
Palanga                          į Palangą
parkas                            į parką
Akropolis                       į Akropolį
viešbutis                         į viešbutį
automobilis                     į automobilį
kambarys                       į kambarį
traukinys                        į traukinį
rūsys                              į rūsį
knygynas                        į knygyną
muziejus                         į muziejų
Vilnius                           į Vilnių
Sidnėjus                         į Sidnėjų
mokykla (school)            į mokyklą
biblioteka (library)           į biblioteką
Lietuva                          į Lietuvą
gatvė                             į gatvę
kavinė                           į kavinę
svetainė                         į svetainę
Klaipėda                        į Klaipėdą

Great!  That should be enough for a small introduction.  On the next lesson we’ll continue working on galininkas and add some more vocabulary for our taxi trip.

Šaunu!  Great!  You made it to the end of another lesson!  Šaunu!

I want to thank Romas for helping us by co-hosting this episode.  It was an honor and a priviledge to have him on the show.  Romai, maybe we can have you back soon and you can tell us a little about yourself.  Romas is an interesting person.

Raminta and I hope you enjoyed this episode, we’re working hard on improving our audio and we hope to have many other co-hosts on Lithuanian Out Loud in order to give you a wide range of voices and regional accents.  As a matter of fact, if you are a native Lithaunian speaker or if you know a native Lithuanian speaker who might like to be on an episode please get in touch with us.  The welcome mat is always on the front porch.

Alright, that’s it for today, we’d like to thank you very much for listening, we appreciate it.

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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.

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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!

http://www.Lithuanian.Libsyn.com
Skype voicemail:  Lithuanianoutloud
email Raminta and Jack at: lithuanianoutloud@earthlink.net
Thanks to:  CCMixter.org, ditto ditto, and Vieux Farka Touré for allowing us to use the music for this podcast.
http://www.vieuxfarkatoure.com/
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