Lithuanian grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Lithuanian A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Verbs: Present TenseThe present tense describes what is happening right now, what happens regularly, and general truths. Lithuanian has only one present tense, so dirbu…
02Verbs: Past TenseThe past tense describes finished actions: what someone did, was doing, or used to do on a particular occasion. Lithuanian has one main past tense, so…
03Verbs: Future TenseThe future tense describes what will happen. Lithuanian builds it in one very regular way, so once you know the pattern you can form the future of almost…
04Verbs: Conditional MoodThe conditional mood is the "would" form. You use it for hypothetical situations, wishes, and - very importantly in everyday speech - for polite…
05Verbs: Imperative MoodThe imperative mood gives commands, instructions, requests and invitations: "work!", "come here!", "let's go!". It is built from the infinitive stem with…
06Verbs: The InfinitiveThe infinitive is the basic "to do" form of a verb - the form you find in a dictionary. In Lithuanian it always ends in -ti (or -tis for reflexive…
07Verbs: Reflexive VerbsReflexive verbs carry a little extra piece - historically the word for "oneself" - fused onto the verb. In the infinitive this shows up as the ending…
08Verbs: Aspect and PrefixesBeyond tense, a Lithuanian verb also has an aspect: it views the action either as a process that is going on (imperfective) or as a whole, completed…
09Verbs: Expressing 'to be' (būti)būti (to be) is the single most important verb in Lithuanian. It is irregular, it links things together, and it expresses existence and location. Its…
10Verbs: ParticiplesA participle is a form made from a verb that behaves like an adjective or an adverb - English "a working man", "a broken cup", "while reading".…
11Nouns: Gender and DeclensionEvery Lithuanian noun has a gender - masculine or feminine - and changes its ending depending on its role in the sentence (its case). There is no neuter…
12Nouns: Nominative CaseThe nominative is the basic, dictionary form of a noun. Its main job is to mark the subject - the person or thing doing the action or being described. It…
13Nouns: Genitive CaseThe genitive is one of the most heavily used cases in Lithuanian. Its core meaning matches the English of or the possessive 's, but it reaches much…
14Nouns: Dative CaseThe dative marks the person or thing that something is given, said, or done to or for - the recipient or beneficiary. It answers "to whom?" or "for…
15Nouns: Accusative CaseThe accusative marks the direct object - the person or thing directly affected by the action. It answers "whom?" or "what?" after the verb. After the…
16Nouns: Instrumental CaseThe instrumental case expresses the means or tool by which something is done - English "by" or "with (the help of)" - and several related ideas. It…
17Nouns: Locative CaseThe locative tells you where - the place in or at which something is. Its most striking feature for an English speaker is that it needs no preposition at…
18Nouns: Vocative CaseThe vocative is the case of direct address - the form you use when you call someone or speak straight to them by name or title. English has no special…
19Nouns: Plural FormsLithuanian nouns have a full set of plural forms, one for each of the seven cases. The plural is not a single ending you tack on - it runs through the…
20Adjectives: Agreement and DeclensionAn adjective describes a noun, and in Lithuanian it must agree with that noun in three ways at once: gender, number and case. So the adjective's ending…
21Adjectives: Comparatives and SuperlativesTo say that something has more of a quality (the comparative, "bigger") or the most of it (the superlative, "biggest"), Lithuanian changes the…
22Adjectives: Definite (Pronominal) FormsLithuanian adjectives have a second, longer set of forms called definite or pronominal adjectives. They are built by fusing the ordinary adjective with…
23Personal PronounsPersonal pronouns stand in for people: I, you, he, she, we, they. Like nouns, they change form for each of the seven cases. Because the verb ending…
24Possessive PronounsPossessive pronouns say whose something is: my, your, his, her, our, their. In Lithuanian most of them are simply the genitive ("of me", "of you") of the…
25Demonstrative PronounsDemonstratives point things out: "this", "that", "such". Unlike the possessives, they behave like adjectives - they agree with their noun in gender,…
26Reflexive Pronoun 'savo / savęs'A reflexive word points back to the subject of the sentence - to whoever is doing the action. Lithuanian has a single reflexive that works for every…
27Interrogative & Indefinite PronounsThis family of words asks questions ("who? what? which?") and, with small additions, also expresses vague or general quantities ("someone, anyone,…
28Numbers and CasesLithuanian numbers do two things that English numbers do not: the small ones agree in gender with what they count, and the noun being counted goes into a…
29Numbers: Collective FormsLithuanian has a second set of numbers, kept for things that have no singular. English runs into the same problem and solves it by adding a word - "two…
30Prepositions and CasesA preposition is a little word like "in, with, from, to" that links a noun to the rest of the sentence. In Lithuanian every preposition governs a case -…
31AdverbsAn adverb describes a verb, an adjective, or a whole sentence - telling how, when, where or to what degree something happens. Unlike adjectives, adverbs…
32Asking QuestionsLithuanian has two main ways to ask a question: a small word that turns a statement into a yes/no question, and a set of question words for asking about…
33NegationLithuanian negation is built around the particle ne. It is simple in form - usually just attached to the front of a word - but it follows one rule that…
34Politeness with 'jūs'Lithuanian, like many European languages, distinguishes a familiar and a polite way of saying "you". Choosing the right one is an everyday courtesy, not…