The Lithuanian alphabet has 32 letters: the Latin ones without q, w and x, plus ą, č, ę, ė, į, š, ų, ū and ž. Each word below carries one of them; press the speaker to hear it.
Č sounds like ch in church, š like sh in ship, ž like s in measure. Dž is the j of jam, as in džiaugtis, to rejoice.
Ė is a long closed e. Y and į are the same long i, and ū and ų the same long u.
Ą, ę, į and ų once marked nasal vowels. Today they only mean that the vowel is long: ą in sąskaita, the bill, is a long a.
Lithuanian is read almost the way it is written, so you can read a text aloud long before you understand it.
Stress is the hard part: it can fall on any syllable, moves between the forms of one word and is not written in ordinary text. The mark next to a word on this page shows the stressed syllable; learn it together with the word.
Translations and examples are written with the help of a language model; the pronunciation is synthesized speech.
Verba sends a short dictation every morning and brings the word back exactly when it starts to fade.
