Conversational Lithuanian, Tuesday evening

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal made sure once again that the signs were up to direct people to the right place, then set up the classroom. When everybody arrived, he was ready.

"Good evening to you all." He nodded. "I hope that anyone who wasn't here last week will introduce yourselves and let me know what sorts of things you might hope to learn in this class. Also, which other languages you might speak; it seems we have a preponderance of Russian in the class."

He smiled and nodded at the folks he'd talked to about that last week. "I thought I would begin by giving you some basic information before starting on vocabulary. Since many of you speak Russian or German, you should at least have some exposure to different cases. Lithuanian has seven. Nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, locative, and vocative." He smiled ruefully. "We also have masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, although neuter is not used for nouns."

He'd get into the four verb moods and twelve cases later.

"We use the standard Roman alphabet, but with several diacritics." He turned and wrote the alphabet on the board:


He pointed them out and briefly pronounced them, then smiled. "We'll use them later, but I wouldn't want them to come as a nasty surprise. Also, stressed syllables use rising or falling tones, so keep that in mind."

He wrote a few more things on the board. "I thought we might start with some very basic phrases, to get you accustomed to these things in practice." He said them as he wrote them, and gave everybody a chance to repeat them out loud or to themselves, whichever they preferred.

Comments

Sign in!

[sharp_as_knives]

Ready to learn Lithuanian!

Re: Sign in!

[lovemykilt]

Priestly

Re: Sign in!

[bitten_notshy]

Jack Priest

Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[sharp_as_knives]

Try not to break your brain.

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[lovemykilt]

Yep, Priestly was pretty much immediately lost. Why did he think learning Lithuanian was a good idea, again?

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Kaip sekasi!" Kenzi grinned at Priestly. Yeah, she was the mimic-monkey. Whether she remembered this next week....

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[bitten_notshy]

Jack followed what was going on -- a bit. Lithuanian's sounds and alphabet were similar to languages he knew, but the vocabulary itself was new.

He enjoyed the challenge.

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[sharp_as_knives]

It was a good thing someone did. Maybe Jack could teach Czech next semester.

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[furnaceface]

Jonothon was actually taking notes today. Notes. Lord, he hadn't done that since he was in high school, himself.

Probably for the best that he was, though. He was trying very hard not to do the blank stare of a man who hadn't been anticipating this to be quite so complicated.

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Habas!" Kenzi hadn't seen Jonothon for a while, so her grin was big as she nibbled on pretzels. "How goes the moving? I would've come by that last time, but that was my work night at Caritas."

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

Kenzi was singing it. With a perfect accent. Even though it was mostly gibberish. Hey, it was funner that way!

Re: Listen to the lecture, ask questions

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal was impressed by her mimicry and amused by the singing. Clearly, his star pupil for this class had been born.

Eat Hannibal's food

[sharp_as_knives]

Tonight there is:

More of his very excellent coffee
Home-brewed beer
Homemade sausage
Piršteliai prie alaus

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[lovemykilt]

Ah, yes, the food.

Priestly was totally here for the food.

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal never minded people enjoying his food. Particularly those with educated palates.

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[furnaceface]

Beer.

Beer, Hannibal. You definitely knew how to get Jonothon to sit up and take notice of the menu for the day.

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal remembered how much Jono had liked his beer. "I tend to prefer wine myself, but beer is traditional with the pastries." He poured himself a glass. "As I said last week, a standing invitation," he reminded Jono before toasting him and taking a sip.

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

Nom nom nom nom Kenzi's palate wasn't educated per se, but it was very opportunistic? Also, beer. "I love this stuff!"

Re: Eat Hannibal's food

[sharp_as_knives]

"Ačiū," Hannibal answered with a smile. "I thought it would be one way to tempt people into the class."

Talk to Hannibal!

[sharp_as_knives]

If you have any questions before or after class, or if you want to introduce yourself if you weren't here last week.

Re: Talk to Hannibal!

[justlurkinghere]

Derek didn't really want to ask a question or introduce himself. But he was doing it anyway.

He was just going to do his creepy lurker thing until the class was gone before talking to Hannibal. And only then did he slink on forward to approach.

Re: Talk to Hannibal!

[sharp_as_knives]

"Hello." Hannibal noted the creepy slinkiness but politely ignored it. "Can I help you?"

Re: Talk to Hannibal!

[crazy-prepared.livejournal.com]

Atticus already knew Lithuanian, although he hadn't spoken it in a while. But he'd been looking for something to do, and when he saw the food, he knew he'd made a very good choice indeed. Before digging in though, he figured it wouldn't hurt to be polite and introduce himself. "Hi. Sorry to interrupt, if I'm interrupting anything."

Re: Talk to Hannibal!

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal turned at his voice and froze for a moment. Even with the different accent and demeanor, it took a moment for reality to set in - tattoos, scent, other small things to tell him this wasn't Will.

Not to mention he wasn't trying to kill Hannibal.

Hannibal gathered himself, still a little wary, and smiled politely. "Not at all. Have you come for the class?"

OOC!

[sharp_as_knives]

Ahahahahaha! Using my psychology *and* linguistics degrees - my mother is so proud!