Numbers, birth date and months in Lithuanian

Ah numbers, one of the most important things you learn as an infant. This, after letters, words, colors, shapes, animals. As an adult learner though, it probably just has to be one of the most essential things to know to function in society. You need numbers to count, to purchase items, to give out your phone number, your age, your street address and the list goes on and on. In this module, we will talk about numbers, how to ask for and indicate age and months in Lithuanian.

Are you in for a bumpy ride? You may think you got the hang of speaking Lithuanian but wait ‘till you get to the end of this module. It’s about to get more exciting!

Numbers, just like words, are often written in their dictionary, nominative form. Along with these, we will also learn how to use them to talk about your age and your birthdate. And as you will see, this entails mobilizing the other cases: accusative, genitive and instrumental. While these three cases do serve their purpose to modify certain linguistic elements, in Lithuanian though, there seems to be no consistent logic - i.e., it just is. I was (still am, to be completely honest) perplexed as how this works. It seems that one has to think about a great deal of rules just to indicate such a short and simple information. My advice? Just take it as it is, use them accordingly and do not give it too much thought. You’ll get the hang of it eventually.

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Don’t back out just yet! I tried to make it as simple as I can, starting with laying out the vocabulary for Lithuanian cardinal numbers (which also changes according to gender, the following are masculine, by default):

0 - nulis
1 - vienas
2 - du / dvi
3 - trys
4 - keturi
5 - penki
6 - šeši
7 - septyni
8 - aštuoni
9 - devyni
10 - dešimt

The hundreds are compound numerals. Take note that from 200 and up, šimtas take in a plural form šimtai.

100 - šimtas
200 - du šimtai…
101 - šimtas vienas
555 - penkta šimtai penkiasdešimt penki…

This goes for the thousands as well. Here’s when it starts to get tricky, though. Besides the singular form as used in 1000 (tūkstantis), numbers from 2 000 - 9 000 takes a plural ending (tūkstančiai), and numbers that end in 0 from 10 000 takes a different ending (tūkstančių).

1 000 – tūkstantis
2 000 – du tūkstančiai
10 000 – dešimt tūkstančių
11 000 – vienuolika tūkstančių

Once you learn these first 11 numbers by heart, the rest will go on fairly simply. Take the stem of the number and add + -(io)lika.

11 - vienuolika
12 - dvylika
13 - trylika
14 - keturiolika
15 - penkiolika
16 - šešiolika
17 - septyniolika
18 - aštuoniolika
19 - devyniolika

The tens are formed by adding the ending -dešimt (ten). From here on, just like in English, add the tens + the first 9 numbers:

20 - dvidešimt
21 - dvidešimt vienas
22 - dvidešimt du
30 - trisdešimt
33 - trisdešimt trys
40 - keturiasdešimt
44 - keturiasdešimt keturi
50 - penkiasdešimt
55 - penkiasdešimt penki
60 - šešiasdešimt
66 - šešiasdešimt šeši
70 - septyniasdešimt
77 - septyniasdešimt septyni
80 - aštuoniasdešimt
88 - aštuoniasdešimt aštuoni
90 - devyniasdešimt
99 - devyniasdešimt devyni

Are you still with me?

If you recall from the previous module on the days of the week, Lithuanian days are labeled in order. It makes use of the Lithuanian ordinal number. In English, this is where we make use of the words first, second, third, fourth, etc. Except for the first three digits which are uniquely their own, we simply add -th to the cardinal number to indicate ordinal numbers. The same logic follows in Lithuanian numbers where you simply add -as.

First - pirmas
Second - antras
Third - trečias
Fourth - ketvirtas
Fifth - penktas
SIxth - šeštas
Seventh - septintas
Eighth - aštuntas
Ninth - devintas
Tenth - dešimtas, etc.

Talk about your age

Kiek tau / Jums metų ?
- Man 29 metai. Man 18 metų. Man 40 metų.

Translation:
How old are you?
- I am 29 / 18 / 40 years old.

The question Kiek tau / Jums metų ? literally sounds like “How much age is on you?” or something to that effect. However, it is aptly translated as “how old are you?” In English.

In this exchange, we introduced a new interrogative word: kiek ? (how much).

Metai and metų are two different forms of the word “year” as we will see later on. Stick with me.

At this point, you probably know the difference between tau and Jums. Kiek tau metų ? is the informal way of asking how old someone is while replacing tau with Jums makes it formal: Kiek Jums metų ? Simply answer Man ... metai / metų, indicating your age in the space between man and metai / metų. Notice that you either use metai or metų. As explained above, numbers, (including 1 this time around), should be modified using the plural metai. On the other hand, numbers 11-19 and numbers ending with 0 should be modified using metų.

Still doing okay? We’re nearly done but the brutal truth is it’s not getting any simpler.

Talk about your birth date

Kada tu gimei / jūs gimėte ?
- Aš gimiau 1990 m. kovo 1 d*

Translation:
When were you born?
- I was born on March 1, 1990.

To talk about your birthday, you would need an additional set of vocabulary: the Lithuanian months of the year, along with some trivia about the names attributed to these months:

Sausis - January
Meaning “dry”. January is in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere where the snow is very cold and dry.
Vasaris - February
From the word vasara, meaning summer. This is misleading because February is still winter time when people start to dream about warmer days ahead.
Kovas - March
Comes from the bird rook when these birds come back in Lithuania.
Balandis - April
Or “pigeon” in Lithuanian when people are reminded of this type of bird due to the birds chirping and the color of the surroundings as winter transitions to spring.
Gergužė - May
Or the Lithuanian “cuckoo" when they start to be heard.
Birželis - June
From biržis, a mark where grain should be planted. June is the month where people start to plant.
Liepa - July
Meaning “Linden tree” when it starts to bloom.
Rugpjūtis - August
Which is “ryes” in Lithuanian when the ryes from the previous year are being harvested
Rugsėjis - September
Also related to ryes, literally means “sowing rye” where the ryes for the next harvest are being planted.
Spalis - October
Meaning “fragments of the husk of flax” when husks of flax are beaten
Lapkritis - November
That time of the year where leaves start to fall as autumn ends and winter approaches
Gruodis - December
From “gruodas” meaning lumpy frozen land when cold winter days are about to start

Date format

Dates in Lithuanian are given out in a different format: the year comes first (m for metai, year), followed by the month, and finally, the day (d for diena, day). The logic is to start first with the most general information down to the most specific.

Notice that March in the sample dialogue is identified as kovo as opposed to what is given in the vocabulary set which is kovas. It’s the same word but as it is used in the date and sample dialogue, kovas was used in its genitive form: kovas (nom.) to kovo (gen.). This being said, when indicating your birth month, the nominative case of the months should be transformed to the genitive case as follows:

Sausio (gen.) - Sausis (nom.) - January
Vasario - Vasaris - February
Kovo - Kovas - March
Balandžio - Balandis - April
Gegužės - Gergužė - May
Birželio - Birželis - June
Liepos - Liepa - July
Rugpjūčio - Rugpjūtis - August
Rugsėjo - Rugsėjis - September
Spalio - Spalis - October
Lapkričio - Lapkritis - November
Gruodžio - Gruodis - December

Getting the hang of it yet? We’re not quite done yet.

How do you pronounce the day? In the same dialogue, the birth date is March 1, 1990. In English, you simply read it as it is : march one nineteen ninety. We already saw how some transformation from nominative to genitive is necessary for Lithuanian months, surely the numbers are read as it is? Not quite. 1990 m. kovo 1 d is read as : tūkstantis devyni šimtai devyniasdešimt metais kovo pirmą. In addition to reading the days using the ordinal numbers (first, second, etc.), observe how there’s a nosinė (review: Lithuanian alphabet) on the final letter “a” in primą. This indicates the accusative case. Fret not, it doesn’t get anymore complicated as the pronunciation will relatively remain the same.

Gimti, gimsta, gimė (to be born) and the past tense

When talking about your birthday, we used a newly introduced interrogative word kada (when) and the regular verb gimti (to be born) in the past tense. The conjugation is therefore different from that of the present tense which we have been seeing in the past modules: