Tenses and Moods of Verbs

5 November 2014 by Pigmalijonas

Level: B2
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Lithuanian tenses are not completely like English, but similar. And easier, I think.

Present tense

The Present tense indicates a present action. Lithuanian doesn't differ Simple and Continuous tenses like English.

Jis dirba anglų kalbos mokytoju. He works as an English teacher.
Jis dabar dirba. He is working at the moment.

Past tense

The Past tense indicates a past action. Lithuanian doesn't differ Simple and Continuous tenses like English.

Jis dirbo anglų kalbos mokytoju. He worked as an English teacher.
Jis vakar dirbo. He was working yesterday.

Past frequentative tense

The Past Frequentative tense is like the Past tense, but it indicates an action that took place frequently. However this frequence is different. It's a frequence that takes a long time and the action is done steadily throughout the whole time. For example, daily during a month or every month throughout a year. The Past Frequentative tense is usually used when remembering something, so you are not going to come across it frequently.

English has a perfect substitution for this tense, which is the phrase 'used to do something'.

Jis dirbdavo anglų kalbos mokytoju. He used to work as an English teacher.
Aną vasarą mes važinėdavome dviračiais. That summer we used to ride bicycles. Note that when you see such sentence, you should imagine that 'we' rode the bicycles throughout the whole summer, not just once or twice in August.

Future tense

The Future tense indicates a future action. Lithuanian doesn't differ Simple and Continuous tenses like English.

Jis dirbs anglų kalbos mokytoju. He will work as an English teacher.
Rytoj jis dirbs. He will be working tomorrow.

Subjunctive mood

The Subjunctive mood is like the one of English, but there are differences in forming Conditional sentences. English would use different tenses in Conditionals, but Lithuanian suffices with just the Subjunctive mood.

Jeigu tu daugiau dirbtum, galėtum nusipirkti mašiną. If you worked more, you could buy yourself a car.
Mūsų vaikas norėtų ledų. Our child would like some ice-cream.

Imperative mood

The Imperative moods is used to order someone or something to do something. Again, the Lithuanian Imperative mood works the same as English. You cannot form first person singular imperative (because you can't order yourself), but you can form first person plural (we) imperative:

Eikime namo! Let's go home!

You can order others directly (second person singular and plural):

Eik namo! Go home! (Singular)
Eikite į parduotuvę. Go to the shop. (Plural)

And you can as if order things to happen indirectly (third person singular and plural):

Teprasideda varžybos! Let the games begin!
Tegyvuoja karalius! Long live the king!
Tedirba greičiau. Let him work faster. I want him to work faster.

You may now return to the beginning of verbs or grammar. Or you may check what are the reflexive forms.

Comments:

Pablo Kelbauskas 25 August 2016 08:09
What abaut prefixes?
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