r/LithuanianLearning

Labas!
I'm a linguistics student trying to self study Lithuanian. I speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese with varying levels. I'm American with some Lithuanian roots (my family was deported to Siberia during a certain time period) on my father's side and often use Russian with my relatives.
I want to learn Lithuanian mostly due to my interest in balto-slavic linguistics and connection with my great grandparents. Unfortunately I have a bit of an irrational fear of having a Russian accent due to the history and have always avoided learning much of the language.

Also, I have no idea how my name would be Lithuanianized, so if anyone could help me that would be much appreciated.

Labas again everyone! 🇱🇹 It's me & my Šaunuolė again :)

5 months ago I shared the first version of Šaunuolė here.
The community response genuinely caught me off guard 😍 — people spotted bugs, pointed out errors, suggested fixes, and not a single person was unkind about it. I brought something pretty raw, and what I got back was only support. That gave me a lot of wind to keep going!

I did my best and nooooow I have a lot of news!

First: I passed my A2! 🎉 Still feels unreal. Huge thanks to everyone here who tried the early version and gave feedback — it really shaped what came next.

Then people actually started using it. That changed things — it wasn't just my personal study tool anymore.

And meanwhile, this community grew so much. So many great new tools for Lithuanian have appeared. It made me ask the hard question: what should Šaunuolė actually be? Where do I add real value vs. just adding noise?

Here's where I landed: Šaunuolė isn't a Lithuanian-learning app. It's a workbook + readiness map specifically for the A2 state exam (the one you need for residency/citizenship). Speaking and listening — I don't cover, that's a different problem (tutor, conversation club). What I do: the written part + showing you exactly what you know vs. what you still need to brush up.

What's new since I was last here:

• Free 15-question mock A2 exam — no signup, full breakdown at the end (vs. 60% pass threshold, block-by-block accuracy, weak topics called out)
• All content rebuilt from textbooks + native-speaker verified
• Interface in EN / RU / UA now. Dream to add Belarusian and Arab, but don't have the natives to work with. But still think about it!

Still completely free.

If you're prepping for A2, the mock exam is a no-commit standalone start: saunuole.lt/r/exam

https://preview.redd.it/4j93hnv9gh0h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=46bfbb2ebf00edafe376fd9dad3871575e89e682

Šaunuolė grows from feedback like this — it's literally how the app has evolved. If something feels off, is missing, or you'd want it to work differently, I'm always glad to hear it.

Sėkmės ir ačiū! 🇱🇹🫶

Labas! Like everyone else, me and my girlfriend (who’s Lithuanian) are frustrated by the lack of apps for learning Lithuanian. Now as our 5-year old son is starting to speak Lithuanian I have a new motivation for learning this beautiful language, so I can understand what he's saying 😄 We’re a developer couple, so we decided to make an app.

Enter Kalbukas (https://www.kalbukas.com/). Kalbukas lets you practice by speaking or chatting to an AI conversation partner. It’s the only app of this kind as far as we know that’s specifically made for Lithuanian. The way it works is that you complete different missions that reflect real life situations like buying a train ticket or ordering coffee. 

The only other competitor is TalkPal which has many languages but unlike our app TalkPal is very generic. For example our app Kalbukas mentions real places that are in Lithuania and targets real situations that can happen specifically in Lithuania. Also Lithuanian language is gendered and TalkPal completely disregards that and assumes the user is male. Kalbukas has a setting where you can set your gender.

We put a lot of time and thought into making it, and we’d love for you to try it out and hear what you think! There’s a free plan that let's you try it out by just signing in.