Lithuanian

The thirty-two letters and the order they are filed in; how length is written and why it cannot always be read off the page; the softening i that is not a vowel; the diphthongs; and why stress must be learned with every word.

Every noun is masculine or feminine and usually announces which by its ending — with one group of feminines that does not; there is no article; *būti* links a subject to a predicate noun or adjective, both standing in the nominative; and the adjective agrees in gender, out of its own class of endings.

Transitive verbs take a direct object in the accusative; nouns, adjectives and pronouns all mark that case. The present tense of the first conjugation is given, and the rule that negation drives the object into the genitive is stated for recognition.

The case of *of*: possession, origin, quantity, and the object of a negated verb. It is the commonest case in Lithuanian and the one an A1 learner meets in the most different jobs.

The present tense completed: the second and third conjugations beside the first, how the stem is got from the principal parts, the verbs of wanting and being able with their infinitives, and the adverbs of frequency that go with the present.

The personal pronouns in every case met so far; the possessives, which do not decline at all; the reflexive *savo* and the ambiguity it exists to prevent; and the polite *jūs*.

How to ask: the particle *ar* for a question answerable by yes or no, the declinable *kas*, the question adverbs, and *koks* asking after a quality. The case of the question word settles the case of the answer.

More than one: the nominative, accusative and genitive plural of nouns, the agreement of adjectives in number, and the cases that numerals govern — which are not the ones an English speaker expects.

Where a thing is and where it is going: the locative, which needs no preposition at all, against *į* with the accusative for direction, and the place prepositions with the cases they govern.

The case of the person concerned: the indirect object, and the constructions in which Lithuanian says that a thing pleases to somebody or is necessary to somebody, where English would make that somebody the subject.

The last two cases, and with them the whole declension. The instrumental says with what a thing is done, in whose company, and at what recurring time; the vocative does nothing but call a person by name.

The numbers to a thousand and the four things a learner counts with them: the hour, the day of the week, the date, and the year. ¶58 settled which case a numeral governs; here are the numerals themselves.

How old someone is, in which year something happened, and how to say one was born on a given date — the biographical uses of *metai* that ¶86 only sketched.

The *būtasis kartinis laikas*: one past tense doing the work of the English simple past, perfect and continuous together. It has two sets of endings, and which of them a verb takes is settled by the third form given in the dictionary.

The simplest tense in the language: one marker, **-s-**, inserted between the stem and the ending, and one set of endings for every verb there is. The only difficulty is what happens when the stem already ends in a consonant that will not stand beside an s.

Everything so far has been said in single clauses. These are the small words that join two of them — and, but, or, because, if, that — together with the particles that colour a sentence without altering its grammar.

The mood that tells a person to do something: forms in **-k-**, the particle *tegu*, negative commands, and the plural imperative of notices and instructions.

The mood that says what *would* happen: forms in **-čiau**, politeness (*norėčiau, galėtumėte*), and the unreal condition with *jeigu*.

How an adverb is made out of an adjective, what kinds of adverb there are, and how both adjective and adverb are compared — better, best; more cheaply, most cheaply.

Sentences with no subject at all: the weather, how a person feels, what hurts, and what is permitted. Lithuanian says these with a special form of the adjective that agrees with nothing, and with the dative already met at ¶69.

The words that point — this, that, such, which — and those that quantify — all, every, nobody. They are adjectives in their behaviour: they decline and they agree, and the learner who has ¶17 has most of them already.

The prepositions not yet given, set out with the whole system in one table; and the reflexive verbs, which at this level are learnt as set phrases rather than as a paradigm.

The five declensions completed: every case in singular and plural, including the third and fifth paradigms that A1 only gestured at, and a review of what each case is for.

The full paradigm behind the set phrases of ¶145: how the reflexive affix -si- conjugates in all three tenses, and how it migrates under negation and under prefixes.

Simple *ne-* denies a state; **nebe-** denies that the state still holds — *no longer / not anymore*. Its positive counterpart is **tebe-** (*still*), and both sit in the same slot as *ne-* relative to the stem and to reflexive *-si-*.

Prepositions not met at A1, and the verbs that govern a case an English speaker does not expect — genitive, dative, or instrumental as the sole object.

Beside the short adjective of ¶17 Lithuanian keeps a long, pronominal form — *gerasis* against *geras* — used when the quality itself picks out a known individual. This section states when that form is required and how it declines.

Beyond the *kad* and *ar* of ¶109–¶110: time with *kai* and *kol*, concession with *nors*, and the Lithuanian habit of keeping the tense that was meant rather than shifting it as English does.

The infinitive of ¶40 was only a complement after *galėti* and *norėti*. It also names purpose after a verb of motion, stands as a subject like a noun, and completes the impersonals already met — three jobs that must not be confused.

*Niekas* (¶137) denies a person or a thing; **joks, jokia** denies a *kind*, and being an adjective in its behaviour it agrees with the noun it denies — *joks studentas, jokios problemos, jokių baldų*. It carries the doubled negative with it, and under a negated verb it goes into the genitive with its noun.