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Latvian or Lithuanian? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6912 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 35 04 September 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
The course they were referring to is here. And to the original poster, I would recommmend Lithuanian. It might be slightly harder but there are more resources for it, including the fantiastic podcast Lithuanian out loud, which is great for getting you to practise speaking and also concentrates on difficult parts of grammar. I cannot recommend it enough. You can find an interactive course with audio at Oneness City, there are some lessons at Debeselis, and more lessons with audio here and here. If you have any more queries about Lithuanian try the Unilang Lithuanian forum and the Debeselis forum. The better resources for Lithuanian means you'll have a slightly easier time tacking your first Baltic language, and you'll be better prepared when you eventually take on Latvian. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jurga Triglot Newbie Lithuania Joined 5435 days ago 19 posts - 24 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Latvian Studies: German, Arabic (classical), French | Message 10 of 35 05 January 2010 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there is a little difference between these. I am Lithuanian and though I wasn't able to understand Latvian at first, but after putting some effort studying it..well, I could survive in Latvia I think:) Latvian is more modern, influenced by Russian and German. Lithuanian is more archaic.It is said to be the most conservative 'living' Indo-European language and therefore it is studied by many reasearchers. In addition, yes, there are way people speaking Lithianian.(I don't want to sound biased though).
Lithuanian is a hard language. Latvian is a bit easier I think... I wouldn't advise learning both as you can get mixed up soon:) But both are very melodic and beautiful:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 11 of 35 07 January 2010 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I never thought before of studying Lithuanian (I really didn't know very much about it), but I went to that course that unzum gave a link to here and it seems very interesting and surprisingly easier (so far) than what I thought. Of course, I have so far only completed the first twelve lessons, but I feel that it is a very nice course and I have learned a bit of Lithuanian and done some outside research about Lithuanian now... Anyways, thank you for that link. :)
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| Kuunhalme Pentaglot Newbie FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6165 days ago 25 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Hungarian, Latvian Studies: Polish, Spanish, Dutch, Georgian, Lithuanian | Message 12 of 35 09 January 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Having studied both languages, I must say that Latvian is somewhat easier to learn, although in my case it is partly due to Latvian being phonetically closer to my mother tongue Finnish than the more archaic Lithuanian. Using Latvian verbs is no piece of cake, it is easier than using Lithuanian verbs. When learning Lithuanian, you need to have audio material to learn how a word is pronounced because the stress is irregular and some vowels in a written text can theoretically be pronounced in more than one way.
As other people already have pointed out, the main problem in learning Latvian might be the scarcity of adequate material. But if you manage to find the three-volume "A grammar of Modern Latvian" by Trevor G. Fennell and Henry Gelsen in a library, you have everything and more to get started with Latvian. It's one of the most comprehensive grammar-based language courses I've ever seen. I wish I had a similar book for Lithuanian... 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6270 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 13 of 35 10 January 2010 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Comparative linguists seem to find Lithuanian the more interesting, because of its archaic Indo-European traits.
I have encountered speakers of both languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5269 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 14 of 35 20 June 2010 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Like someone said here - Lithuanian is more an archaic language. It could be similar in sounding to Polish. Don't know much about the vocabulary. But as a Latvian, I can say that Latvian is more influenced by other languages - Latvian has many words that are taken from other languages - German, Swedish, even Finnish. So if you are more familiar with Germanic language vocabulary, you could try Latvian, but mu suggestion is to learn both at the same time - then you will learn both languages and see the differences and similarities. I do this with Swedish and Danish.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5314 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 15 of 35 22 June 2010 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Im making this same decision right now too. I have a thread on here: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=21326&PN=1 which I posed the same question. After the responses and listening to them both I decided on Latvian. I think it sounds much crisper and cleaner. But then again, the sound of it may not be a critreion for you or maybe you like the sound of Lithuanian better...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6998 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 16 of 35 31 August 2010 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I'm considering doing a trip to the baltic states. I don't speak russian. I can learn basic survival Lithuanian, but is it understood in Latvia ? Well I suppose estonian is more like Finnish right ? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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