By Linas
So, we travel to the past by changing ti to o. That is not the whole story, though and we will be learning some additions to it now.
First, do you remember the i words which have the infinitives as ėti. Have two birds with one stone in the same sentence:
So, you have norėti. If you travelled to the past, what do you think you would get? Norėti - ti + o = norėo. In speech, you could happily say norėo and get away with that. However, in writing, Lithuanian doesn’t like that ėo in one place so it adds a separator - j, which is the y sound from yet. So, it actually becomes norėjo instead of norėo in writing although in speech they are equal.
Lithuanian adds a separator j inbetween ė and o when travelling to the past.
Now we have a lot more words we can travel to the past with - including the whole i group. Let’s try this.
Again, have a formal you example
You know that all i words change to ėti so they all have ė and they all take up that extra j in the past. Talking about a words which do not follow the general A, do you still remember the odd one out: to speak?
Niiice. Now, let’s make another point which is practically the same point:
Remember the word to think (to use your head which is galva):
If you wanted to travel to the past, you would get galvoo but again Lithuanian doesn’t like this double oo just as it doesn’t like this ėo so it adds that separator j again and it becomes galvojo. So:
Lithuanian also adds the same separator j inbetween o and o when they end up together in the past.
Try it:
The word order is pretty arbitrary in the next sentence but let’s honor the rule that even if it’s about it instead of it, it still sticks in the middle. Say:
The Lithuanian word for avail is...
To use would be to avail of which would be...
So:
As a final example, I would like to invite our old friend to know. Do you remember it:
Žino is an o word so it should become žinyti but as we have learned it is one of the rear exceptions and it actually becomes žinoti instead of žinyti. So what do you think the past form would be?
And:
Alright. This served as a good general introduction to the past. This is, yet, not the whole story and we will be learning even more about the past in the next lesson.