I hope that Mazda isn’t a diesel one.

The show I remember being praised for being the opposite was Netflix’s Daredevil. The fighting sequences were well done and long lasting because people kept getting up instead of just lying there after taking a couple of kicks.

His wife already looks like a Barbie doll.

She’s a veteran politician with her own cult of personality, she will be fine. She’s not planning to be the prime minister though.

This election had some weird surprises, like the young and progressive Laisvės Partija getting zero votes, but it could have gone so much worse.

No, but have some Lithuanian ones.

Don’t spit in a well as one day you may drink from it.

Bend the tree while it is young.

Flax is not yet sown and they are already weaving the linen.

You will know a horse by his teeth and a man by his talk.

God gave teeth, God will provide the bread.

Cat stroking leads to hump raising.

Old love does not rust.

The shoemaker is always barefoot.

Whatever you do, do it well.

There is no medicine that can cure stupidity.

Well begun, is half done.

Idioms

Spoons after supper (too late to bring something up)

hang noodles on the ears (try to fool someone)

like a fifth leg for a dog (something useless)

don’t say ‘wheee’ before jumping over the ditch (too early to brag about something)

sitting like they were just kissed (to be lost and disoriented)

walking like they just sold the land (to be sad)

catch the corner (to grasp the meaning)

my roof is riding away (I am losing my mind)

it’s a fact like a pancake (something easy to accept)

to pour from an empty container into a leaky one (to talk without saying anything meaningful)

go and visit the dwarves (visit the bathroom)

like a finger in the eye (to say something accurate)

it left on the dog’s tail (a plan that failed)

cutting a mushroom (to do useless work)

to shepherd the eyes (look at something nice)

wrap words in cotton wool (trying to speak nicely about a difficult subject)

to leave someone on ice (to abandon someone)

show the goats (to cry and scream when you don’t get what you want)

to clarify a relationship (to fight someone)

You’re welcome.

If you want to read more about the history of Lithuania and surrounding countries and their nation formation, a great start would be Timothy Snyder’s book “The Reconstruction of Nations”, he’s the most popular historian of the region who is not from the region.

I mean, yes and no.

You are assuming that Lithuanian language became formalised when Lithuania was united under one government. Instead, most of language formalisation happened between 1880s and 1920s, when Lithuanian speaking population was actually divided between Prussian and Tzarist Russian empires. While most of the people lived in Tzarist Russia, writing in Lithuanian in Latin script was forbidden there.

Instead, books in Latin script were printed in Prussia and distributed in Russia illegally. A handful of people like J. Basanavičius and V. Kudirka ended up in charge of printing most of those books and it made it easy to set language standards. Achieving such a monopoly with a bigger language would be much more difficult.

That is also why formal Lithuanian is based on one ethnic dialect that was spoken in Prussia.

When a plant or an animal is toxic, very often it’s a defense mechanism.

Už Laisvės Partiją :/

That happened hundreds of years after Hus.

If there’s a 1 minute sex scene in a 90 minute movie, you’re guaranteed to have your parents walk in during that one sex scene.

Don’t kill the rich. Exile them to an island and watch them eat each other instead of eating the world.

Fun fact: The Czech adopted š, č and ž to look less German. The Lithuanians adopted it to look less Polish.

Lithuanian: Palaikyk mano alų.

Just come up with new letters, Lithuanian has 9 (ą, ę, ė, į, ų, ū, č, š, ž) extra letters. If a small language can do it, so can English.

Be Lithuanian. Get culturally dominated by Poland. Refuse to speak Polish anyway. Refuse influence from any language. Remove loan words, replace them with newly made Baltic sounding ones. End up impossible to learn.

It’s review, but written in similar looking Cyrillic letters.

The end of sunny season 😿

The start of heater season 😻

That brings some memories.

When the referendum for Lithuania’s joining of EU started, the attendance was abysmal.

It picked up when a supermarket chain offered to exchange the “I voted” sticker for a bottle of beer, a chocolate bar or a small bag of laundry powder.