I met a completely lost Wolt currier in my neighborhood and he spoke like three words in English and not a word in Lithuanian. It doesn't look like proper immigration nor proper service.
Speaking of proper immigration, traffic police sometimes catches Bolt drivers with fake driving licenses (or taken away, or just no license at all), or they even get deported because of expired visa/TRP.
If it is a student just for education that is planning to go back to its own country then I can really forgive. But who knows if they are not abusing it at this point.
@@ligametis if they were a real student they would at least know English because most courses not in Lithuanian are English, and the ones not in English are in Russian which I also doubt he can speak
Esu turkas ir gyvenu Lietuvoje, visiškai pritariu šiam sprendimui. Lietuvos žmonės nusipelno kalbėti lietuviškai savo šalyje. Aš taip pat esu mokymosi procese.
Im Canadian living in Estonia. I managed to get my A1 in the first 6 months of being in the country because I thought it was important to be able to speak the language with people within the country. English is a fairly common fall back here but I still think a common decency is to try and speak Estonian to people. Additionally, now I am trying to find work a lot of places require a A2 or B1 minimum in order to work within their companies. So it is definitely a struggle at times for me but I also entirely understand the need to preserve and expand the language as Estonia is a small country and less then 1 million can speak it.
This is a first of many necessary steps to protect our national identity. A lot of foreigners are coming to our country but a bunch of them (especially ones that are russian speaking) don't care about the culture and language. I had cases where I ordered some food and person did not know how to find my apartment but he didn't speak neither lithuanian nor english. Some even got irritated that I did not speak russian.
@@DS.J If you will be forced to learn the language, you will have to learn about the culture as well. Most of people who are too lazy to care about the culture won't learn the language and without a job will simply just have to leave the country. Just turn on your brain for a minute before commenting next time 😂
@@shinetalent It's important to understand that noone will be forcing anyone to do anything. You just can't "force" anyone to learn a language, just like you can't force anyone not to use a language. Lithuanians should know this better than anyone.
I'm Brazilian but I love Lithuania (and Lithuanian). I agree with you that this will motivate folks to learn the language. And Dovile's absolutely right about specialised courses.
I'm not too sure how such courses would work, just think of English and try to make "specialized course for service industry", all of it would come back to learning basic communication in a language and parts of it being used in that setting.
we do not need to motivate anyone. If they already spent years working here and did not even put any effort in showing respect to our people, language and culture they are a lost cause and should not be here.
and that wouldnt be wrong. if not changed, russian speakers keep speaking only russian life long. we need to integrate everyone, who wants to live in LTU.
@tomiskundelis2321 Do you think it will help? I think people are inclined to do what is more comfortable, so if speaking Russian is comfortable, they will do it anyway.
It's about a real problem. Imagine you order a taxi, but not able to say where, how to go. Or you order a taxi for your child and he's horrified instead of helped.
I'm a language teacher, and I think that any person can attain an A1 level of any language in 6 months, a year at most, people with disabilities being a possible exception. If you narrow down the learning to language for specific purposes, such as giving and being given directions, it would take even less. Personally, the situations where a delivery worker cancels my delivery because of a language barrier or does not even use such basic phrases as "sveiki" and "geros dienos" are very annoying. It takes little effort to learn a few basic phrases in Lithuanian, but knowing them will have a big impact on how people perceive you.
Agree with you..I spend about 8-10 weeks every year in Lithuania,(the last 4 years) and I even have an A1 level proficiency --If you want to learn the language, you totally can.
Wow that is a smart comment Mr smart comment.. I agree forcing people to use a language is very progressive! And it's not like it's difficult to learn a few words in an internal language spoken by over 300,000,000 people.. Wait a minute, sorry, correction, my mistake.. Lithuanian isn't an international language.. it's only used in Lithuania, a country with a lower population than most European cities 🤔 I got confused it's russian and English that are taught globally and spoken by hundreds of millions of people.. oops 😮 I must be some sort of idiot 😕
@@Jay-mc2dz Lithuanian is used across Europe and in the UK and America. There are many Lithuanian nationals in many countries so I think in Lithuania they deserve to begin with their home language.
@@markplenty2631 I agree, they deserve to use their language everywhere including Lithuanian whoever they should also tolerate the use of other languages in Lithuania. As you have correctly pointed out Lithuania is part of a global community and they should act accordingly. My issue with the attitude seen here is that they do not want to give people the opportunity to learn Lithuanian. Therefore this cannot be about preserving language or culture.. it's about keeping people out.
If you work in a warehouse and your employer is ok with you not knowing the language, it is fine. But if your job is to interact with customers you should be sufficient enough to do your job. The other day lady who works in a meat section of a supermarket didn't even speak the language, I had to point to her what I wanted. I think people don't want to worry whether they will be able to communicate when getting a service.
English Guy here wanting to move to Kaunas....and i want to totally integrate into Lithuanian society and this will include learning the language but in the UK finding books/apps or courses in Lithuanian is impossible. but when i move to Lithuanian i intend to enrol straight away into several classes a week
Lithuanians must have service provided in lithuanian in Lithuania teritory, especially services like bolt, wolt, etc. This is important, because otherwise lithuanians will experience bad service like late deliveries or prolonged ETA due to miscommunication or lack of communication.
Fair enough, but if you're gonna inforce the need of language for foreigners at least have in place a solid government backed program for teaching it. Lithuania got Jack doss... Like do you expect me to splurge 1000 eur to learn your language from my own pocket or what???
I order food regularly and i dunno how many times the courier would just refuse to call or text when they can't find the place just circling around or going off the route, because they don't speak either, i have instructions written down in both Lithuanian and English and 90% of them can't read them nor bother to translate. 8 out of 10 times it's going to be a foreigner delivering the food or driving the car. It's kind of insane to me how many foreigners are doing these jobs and i only encountered a handful who could actually communicate basics in lithuanian. I think this should be a natural way of doing things, if you decided to live in a foreign country, do your part in it and learn the language. It's just logical to me. It's particulary obvious in Vilnius. So this is a pretty good thing, if they can't do it on their own, make it happen by law.
Thanks for the video. This information is useful not just for foreigners who are trying to better integrate into a new country and culture, but also for teachers that are helping them to do so.
Soy venezolano, vivo en Lituania. Entiendo que debo ser muy respetuoso con las leyes, cultura y el gentilicio de este hermoso País, y así lo he procurado. Sigo canales de RUclips como este y otros cuyo contenido me brinda información sobre Lituania, sus costumbres, su historia y por supuesto, tutoriales de enseñanza del idioma. A parte he realizado dos cursos presenciales y algo he aprendido a hablar, pero me resulta frustrante oír a la gente hablando y prácticamente no entender nada o muy poco. En mí trabajo he aprendido frases que me resultan útiles a la hora de interactuar con clientes que no hablan inglés. Que por cierto, ese es otro detalle, hay personas que prefieren que les hables en lituano, en la mayoría de casos personas mayores, pero a los jóvenes no les molesta en lo absoluto que hables con ellos en inglés, el cual hablan de manera perfecta. Tal vez ese hecho es el que me ha permitido integrarme sin verme presionado por no hablar bien su idioma. No creo que un nivel A1 sea suficiente para realizar trabajo de Bolt Food. En la actualidad son muchos, creo que la gran mayoría, los extranjeros que realizan ese trabajo y no entiendo como se comunican con aquellos lituanos que no hablan inglés. En mi caso personal, aunque hablo inglés, sigo estudiando y tratando de ampliar mi vocabulario y espero en algún momento hablar con suficiente fluidez el idioma lituano, lo hago por respeto hacia las personas de este pequeño y hermoso País que le dió la oportunidad a mi familia de estar aquí.
This change is great, laws should benefit the indigenous, not the foreigners. If you can't and don't want to speak like the locals, you're not welcome here. In vilnius I had more taxi drivers who don't speak a word of lithuanian than vice versa. Vilnius is slowly going the way of London and Paris and it scares me.
If I to go to some other country and work there interacting with customers daily while speaking Lithuanian is crazy idea why is requirement like this one so debated on?
IF you are living in foreign country - learn their language. Thats common human decency. Why should I listen to some ukrainian blabering something in russian when I try to get my burger? After the 1st time I used Wolt and I got that experience I just uninstalled the app and just buy everything myself.
Will be funny when russia occupies Lithuania soon, and you will be far, far away, and will see what it really is to learn a foreign language from zero. Hope you will enjoy Greek, buddy 😂
not necessarily a ukrainian, but a belarussian, or god forbid russian, speaking in russian. + russians have this imperialist view that their culture/language is superior and haven't had the decency to learn the language for 30+ years of living in the country
Similar laws, and laws outlawing elementary and high schools that teach exclusively in a foreign language, are mostly targeted at the larger Russian speaking populations in Latvia, and possibly Estonia.. There are many generations of Russians who live in Latvia and never learned a word of Latvian, and act as if Latvia was still a part of the USSR. Many laws trying to de-Russify the Baltic countries have gained steam since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. BTW, I was born and raised in New York City, but my first language was Lithuanian. My father is from Mariampole and my mother is from Kaunas.
Who should Russians waste their time and learn the senseless languages? What information or knowledge is available in Latvian and Estonian? Do New Yorkers learn navajo or cheerokee language? Do Canadians learn inuit? Do Peruvians learn quechua?
I'm totally for this law amendment, since I'm living in my country and those who came here for work must be talking local language to the certain level. It was also noted that those people who came for Central Asia, were told they would be able to speak in Russian in Lithuania, however this is not Soviet times anymore and respect for the locals should come naturally. Try to imagine foreigners coming to Germany for example and they would be speaking Russian or other language but not German, that's unimaginable.
Senai taip reikėjo. Tik gaila, kad ne nuo 2025 įsigalioja. Asmeniškai mane tai jau užkniso kai aš, pirkdamas paslaugas, esu priverstas bendrauti ne lietuviškai.
Tai jie dar tuo naidojasi, pradeda nesamones plakt savo hindi ir tik no adres tepasako, nors stovi pries duris ;D o tu kaip idiotas eini ieskot i laiptine tada leidiesi laiptais ir kieme stovi kazkur tavo indusas, besitikintis, kad tuoj gales pabegt su tavo uzsakymu
I came to visit family during summer 2024. Had a great time at Dainu Svente! I did find it odd that my bolt driver didnt speak lithuanian, english or polish...
I get very annoyed when Bolt driver starts speaking to me in Russian directly. On the other hand, I do not really want to talk anyway and it gets me from A to B. Delivering food is also not an issue as they just hand you the food - do not care if they don't speak LT. On the other hand, A1 level is really low and achievable by anyone, it's like what, 3 months course? I doubt it's effectiveness too.
@@ligametis how is English more foreign than russian? English is an international language and the whole internet is in English. If you don't know English, you are either living under a rock, or are a russian descent half-human.
The law is very much needed. And not only for food deliverers and taxi drivers. There were some articles in the media recently that a patient couldn't get help at an emergency department because the doctor and the nurse didn't speak Lithuanian. Can you imagine that? There are language requirements for such professions, in most of Europe it's mandatory to speak C1 level, some countries are happy with B2 + exam of medical speach.
Well If you go to any foreign country, it is always required to learn the local language to live there, even going as a tourist sometimes people are mad for not knowing their language. Lithuania is no exception! Learn the language or leave!
I disagree about going as a tourist. I speak English, Norwegian, Croatian and Spanish. If I were to go Hungary for example, I would learn Hello and a few other phrases because I think that's the respectful thing to do. But I think it's unreasonable to expect a foreign tourst to speak the language on an advanced level if they're just visiting for a few days.
I completely agree with the ruling. Numerous times I have had the unpleasant experience of being served by someone who spoke neither Lithuanian nor English. In some cases these were solved by pointing a finger in the right direction, but other times it lead to a good 30 minutes of frustration and confusion. Given all the problems that the rest of the European society has had with integrating immigrants, we should try and do better. Creating pockets of alienated cultures and building resentment towards those people won't do any good.
Problem is with us, that we are good for them and we try to speak another language, which better foreigeners. Actually, maybe we think, that they are not so intelligent or something else. We should understand, that it is them problems and we should speak with them only our language.
About paying for the courses: the companies do not have to provide the courses as those in question are not employees, they are service providers. As service providers they operate on an individual or business permits, and as such they are eligible for tax breaks if they need courses to provide a service: so basically courses would still be free, just not through the employer, but through the tax reduce.
Over here in JAV we are under pressure to learn Spanish. But yet the hispanic population is under no pressure to learn English because all levels of government make it convenient for them to do business in their language and WE are the ones that have to adapt. I have sympathy for Lithuanians.
Agree with the law. Encouraging doesn't work. But yes, for say, taxi driver, learning useful needed sentences for the particular job but to A1 level rather than a generic A1. As a Welsh speaker 🏴 I'm jealous of the strength of the Lithuanian language, but don't take it for granted. You need structural laws and systems to support and grow Lithuania.
It blows me away that something like this isn't already a requirement. If you're working somewhere, you need to be at a conversational level at minimum. I remember Living Languages having 6 week courses (advertised 1/2hr/day) for several languages. They were more designed for business people or diplomats. So, they tended to be more formal. But, this shows that it's very possible to get to this level in a short amount of time. Carrot vs stick People tend to be lazy. If someone can get by without learning a language (lots of effort needed), in general they will go without.
I would love to speak more Lithuanian! 🇱🇹 I would have come to live there for a bit and study the language at the University, but things have taken a different path. I taught myself through different apps and google translate enough to get by. I’m now addicted to the country and language.
I personally think it will have a major positive influence: 1) An increase in salary due higher demand of workers (there will be less available cheap labour (supply of workers). 2) Geopolitical safety, security and sovereignty of Lithuania. We Lithuanians want our neighbour to fully understand that we will not assimilate with them and therefore always stay culturally, linguistically and spiritually independent. Lithuanian language is not even a Slavic and therefore it is completely different from Russian language (Ukraine was not so lucky). 3) Language requirements will naturally filter the immigration (with job agreements and motivation). Quality over quantity. 4) Good for an employee (knowing an additional language is simply always good). 5) Lithuania will become more inclusive rather than exclusive - less isolated groups. More unity!
Personally, I think this is a very understandable move from Seimas and probably long overdue! That being said, I think many people are misunderstanding it as meaning interactions HAVE to be in Lithuanian. They'll have A1 Lithuanian - most Lithuanians will still choose to speak English (or Russian) with them 😂
I think Dovile's idea about specialized courses for specific jobs is the best. I've experienced this situation of learning a new language three times: - When I moved to Spain, I had to learn Spanish. - Later, I relocated within Spain to the Catalonian region, where Catalan was commonly used, so I learned Catalan. - After many years, I moved to France, and now I'm learning French. Although these languages were never legally required for my job, not knowing them meant no one would hire me. In Lithuania, the situation should be similar. If you don't speak Lithuanian, you can't work in jobs that require language skills, such as communicating with clients. Not because is mandatory, but because no one would hire you. You don’t need to speak perfectly, but you need to know key terms relevant to the field-something an average person can learn in a few weeks, depending on the profession, of course.
Much needed law. An exception may be applied to using English as a working language of EU. I had been ordering Wolt every other day April through October. I had been flatly refusing to speak Russian. Only once I had deviated to Polish as a Slavic language any Belarusian or Ukrainian understands. This new law will give me legal grounds to refuse acceptance of the delivery.
As a Lithuanian who also works as a wolt courier I think that this would help with illegally working immigrants, because many couriers blame them for the low pay, since they accept lower priced orders which let's wolt or bolt pay us less since there's more couriers working for less
I don't use Bolt pick-up services that often but when I do, it's rare that I interact with the driver outside of the casual greeting and a goodbye at the end of the journey but when you need to have something extra (to wait a bit or make an intermediate stop) and can't communicate it with the driver, I can see how it can be a bit complicated. I kind of wished that they (the courier services) would explore an option that would provide a "no-talk" option so you could get a ride without interacting with the driver at all, that way it doesn't matter if the driver speaks lithuanian or not, but I guess it wasn't feasible and might be a bit chaotic to organize. Without marginalizing to much, the other take is that part of those drivers are russian or from countries with a high russian diaspora, of whom some have lived here all their lives and simply refused to learn lithuanian. This can be viewed as a tool to make those that work in this field to comply or to risk loosing their income. I like how you pointed out both the upsides and the downsides of this requirement. It's kind of sad that those providing these services couldn't make it work without needing this requirement but I can also see why it is needed and hopefully that won't affect the quality of their services too much. We'll just have to see what the effects will be now.
In my opinion the law is irrelevant, Anyone that wants to live in a foreign country should on their own show some respect by trying to learn some of the host language on their own. If they don't want to try then they shouldn't be allowed to reside there. The only people that are not required to learn the language are visitors and tourists. And when I say visitors they are those that are there for a short term say a year or less. Even though I was born and raised part of my life in Germany by a German mom I was never taught German, when I was deployed there to the fulda gap for 4 years in the US Army I learned it anyway on my own and the local community showed me respect in return, I served there for 4 more years after the wall came down and my daughter was spoken to in German and when I moved back to the US she learned English. It's not a question if foreign residents should learn Lithuanian, Its a question of why they don't try anyway.
Specialized courses sound nice but there is a bit of a problem with. Who's going to be responsible for preparing and testing these exams? If it's the government then that puts a pretty big burden since you would need to create an exam for each specialization and presumably take these exams several times a year. If you let private bussinesses do all this examination by themselves, then you will create incentives to churn out licenses for learners as quickly and easily as possible. A1 exam is by no means perfect but it is simple, and often a simple solution is better than a more complete but more complicated solution.
You can say carrots are better than sticks but then you live all life in this country and you don't speak Lithuanian come on. Yes Lithuanian language is not easy, but you only need keywords and then you know that, it's much easier to learn more.
And then in the next sentence I say “sticks are better than nothing at all” 😉 I agree that learning basic Lithuanian keywords is very easy. I can’t believe people would come to live in a country and not try to learn the national language. It’s very sad and disrespectful and should never happen.
@@LithuaniaExplained, it happens because this country had been annihilated by the Russian empires TWICE. The USSR had been a version of that empire for Russians (and all the non-Russians had been heavily Russified in the whole territory that the USSR had occupied). People who come to Lithuania from other Russified countries and from countries in which they learn that Lithuanians speak Russian (like Italy or the Netherlands), they come here to speak Russian and think it is normal, right, fair, and it should stay like this forever. That just annoys every Lithuanian. I am the one who lived in a heavily Russified Vilnius in Soviet times.
I do not understand yonger people like Dovilė, she is too liberal for foreingners. Doesn't she understands that we already hear too many foreign languages in the public plases of Lithuania? Especially in Vilnius city. I hate that Maxima or other food stores almost do not have workers who speaks lithuanian and I can ask them nothing in lithuanian language!!! Why do I have to speak foreign language in my own country? It does not make me become more patriotic for my country if I am starting to feel a stranger in my own Lithuania! Politicians hear me! Make imigrants speak lithuanian before they get a live or work visas! Do not give imigrant citizenship of Lithuania! They can not become citizens of Lithuania! Our LR Constitution states that Lihuanian countries ownership belongs only to Lihuanian nation!
I think that this law is a positive thing, since learning Lithuanian makes foreigners able to be more flexible within the Lithuanian job market. As a foreigner living in Lithuania learning basic A2 Lithuanian language was important to me in my first year here. It also helps if you work with Lithuanians everyday and if you need to deal with government departments or need help at a doctors or so on. English can only get to so far and restricts what you can do. But Dovile is right there does need to be more encouragement and provision for foreigners in regards to learning Lithuanian. But there also needs a little stick, just to make sure that everyone at least has some basic knowledge. With regards to Lithuanian language knowledge in services, this is something particulary relevant in Vilnius
I'd like to comment on Dovilė's opinion and say that just being in a supposed "good situation" with our language prevalence now, does not automatically guarantee that it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. These proposed measures are a good step in the right direction to make sure our language does not get pushed to the sidelines in favor of whatever's most convenient or dominant as it has been for most of this country's history, first with polish, then russian. I have moved to Vilnius and lived here for several years. The problem of foreigners not knowing our language here is especially bad compared to me being used to be able to communicate all in my own language alone. We shouldn't be the ones expected to learn a language like russian or some other 3rd world equivalent whose people's are being bussed in by businessess at this very moment, with the sole reason of keeping wages stagnant and working conditions piss poor. They are a people who can put up with a whole lot more for a whole lot less.
I am so for this, even though I don't remember there being any service problems as I just write the instructions in Lithuanian/English and so far no problems, I do wonder if they just translate that text to russian or I was just lucky to get people who understand either of those languages. In any case a basic language requirement is a must just so Lithuanian heritage doesn't die out, it already feels too russian-fied whenever I browse RUclips or TikTok logged out and then it's just russian content getting spit in my face
Esmė tame, kad tu neturėtum to daryti, jie turi integruotis į šalį, ne šalis į juos. Gyvenau 7 metus Vokietijoj ir nė karto naudodamasis paslauga nebuvo taip, kad nekalbėtų Vokiškai, mūsų šaly įprasta taikytis prie užsieniečių, kai dauguma kitų šalių to netoleruotų.
I order food regularly and i dunno how many times the courier would just refuse to call or text when they can't find the place because they don't speak either, i have instructions written down in both and 90% of them can't read them nor bother to translate. 8 out of 10 times it's going to be a foreigner delivering the food or driving the car. It's kind of insane to me how many foreigners are doing these jobs and i only encountered a handful who could actually communicate basics in lithuanian.
@@artcika exactly. I had instructions written in Lithuanian and English. Those retards could not find me most of the time even though it was so clear on the map. Then they would call me and try to speak to me in russian while driving circles around my building.
i disagree with Lithuanian teacher about A1 level if they see rise in need to learn direction vocabulary they should change lesson content or provide additional lesions focusing on vocabulary needed for jobs
As a Canadian who will be moving to Lithuania at some point, I agree that Lithuanian should expect to be able to communicate in lithuanian and I support this new requirement. Of course it is easy for me to say that as it does not effect me now, or if I were to retire here to be close to mt wife's family. I personally can get by mostly with the help of google translate when I need to communicate with one of my eifes friends who does not know any english (or french, or german, or italian which is do speak a little of each). But I find it not as us full when I need to really get technica or specific as I tried recently when asking a store worker about home automation options. On a related topic, I have heard that there is a language requirement ( that might be changing) for foriegners to know a certain level of lithuanian to renew temporary or perminant resident permit.. I am keen to know about this as when we move here I will likely retainer my canadian citizenship and would be planning on becoming a perminant resident. I believe that since I would be in lithuania to reunite with my lithuanian wife, that the language requirement for me to obtain temporary residence permit, or renew ng it, or obtain ng a perminant resident permit, may not require a Lithuanian language test. I believe that I am in a similar position to you in this regard, so you may be perfectly placed to know what the current language requirements would be for me. My wife's family chooses to speak russian so I am exposed to that only and am picking it up, which further complicated and slows learning Lithuanian. Another great video. Thanks
You have to take a language exam if you want to get permanent residency, BUT they are also talking about a language exam if you want to extend temporary residence permit after living here for 5 years. I applaud this because a lot of disrespectful pieces of shit live here for YEARS and just keep extending the TRP without putting in any effort to learn the language.
I am a taxi driver and I know very little Lithuanian. The local people are very nice and understanding. And most of the population knows English anyway. I also support this idea and it would be great if we could have daily conversations in the local language. However, companies do not make it easy for us to learn the language, as you mentioned in the video. As you mentioned, companies should give us free courses or online training. Companies leave us alone, they say, no language, no job. The fact that the service sector is cheap and fast is due to the fact that we, foreign workers, are in the system so much. When the decision is implemented and only those who have language proficiency will be able to work, but in this case, it seems that there will be some problems in the service sector. (Delays in orders, taxi price increases, etc.) ačiū, kad skaitėte.
Companies should, but i heard taxi drivers at bolt taxi works not on worker contract, but on individual buisness license, so i can see why these specific companies could refuse training.
nobody owes you anything. Learn by yourself if you cannot find courses and if there will be "problems" for foreigners not working in service industry anymore I do not mind paying more.
@@noob8 companies should not give them anything. Drivers should come working for those companies ALREADY knowing Lithuanian language. There was a loophole in the laws and that is why we have this disgusting attitude and services now. This law was implemented to fix that. By how those foreigners are bitching and moaning to not have free language courses handed to them already shows how selfish and disrespectful they are. No place in here for such people. They expect us to spoon feed them while they are simultaneously spitting in our faces. Disgusting.
I totally disagree with a lady in the end speaking how our language should not be enforced. No one is FORCING immigrants to learn. They can go back to their countries, or they should choose jobs that do NOT require a communication, like some construction positions. And I do not care if Wolt or Bolt closes down because of it. Others will step up and take their place.
I am from Bangladesh. I can speak English and Bangla. I am planning to go to Lithuania as a student. I need earn my living expense there by doing job. If the govt doesn’t allow me to work as a food delivery boy then how can I be there? I think this wouldn’t be a good decision. I am interested to learn Lithuanian but imposing something will restrict the students who prefer Lithuania than the other European countries. This is a shocking news for me. Thanks.
I think the problem is real, but as always the government tries to do something, but doesn't do it properly or fully thinks it out. Hope we all (foreigners and locals) manage to adapt.
This law is mainly targeting russian speaking people as they are not willing to integrate. We have some of them living in here 30yrs and still refusing to speak the language. So this will force them, other nationalities are willing to learn and do learn quite quickly so there is no issues with them.
It is EXTREMELY uncommon to see native Russian speakers who have been "living in here for 30 years" and don't speak the language. To be honest, I have only seen only a handful of such people during my entire life and in all cases it's some really old grandmas who probably find it difficult to learn the language in their late age.
I don't think so. It might be there are some local only Russian speakers in Lithuania but they're far from young. They're deep inside their niches. The law is aimed to younger people who provide services and their customers are mostly forty and younger as well. These Lithuanians don't speak Russian in general.
Hopefully this will inspire someone to create a Duolingo Lithunian course or a Rosetta Stone course. Currently i can learn Klingon or Elvish with more convenience than Lithuanian.
When I live in another country, I learn that language of country where I live, do all immigrants must learn Lithuanian, otherwise, get out of us country... I'm talking about Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians immigrants. Our country our rules, if you don't like our rules, get out of our country. We love our old indo-european language
"Lithuanian language never been in a better position than it is now" Is this really your argumentation? So it won't harm if we make it worse? I am sorry Dovile, but what are you saying is crazy for a teacher.... Good that foreigners are culturally close to us, but integration is necessary. And the best way is by learning the language, because if they will feel that they don't need it, they wont. We don't want to have the same problems like other Nordic countries (Sweden for example). I have met few Ukrainians living in Kaunas, they told me that their parents told to go to this city, because more Lithuanian language is spoken. Vilnius becoming more russian speaking city. Ask anyone that has been living there more than 5 years.
Yes, I agree it is a waste of time to learn A1. It should be at least B2. EDIT: I remember situation with Wolt in which the delivery guy from some middle east country tried to deliver order to me and he not only couldn't speak Lithuanian, but his English was HORRIBLE. Such people should not work such a job. Even during my holidays I try to learn at least few basic words and sentences of country I am visiting and sometimes I feel that I put more effort for a week long visit compared to these (di)sservice people.
As an American who has travelled in and out of Lietuva for over 20 years, I salute Lietuva for making people learn the language. God knows we have enough "citizens" of our own country who can't order a cup of coffee and a meal in English because we fail to make people learn proper English. Aciu Lietuva!
Don't know anything about the tax system there but can a tiered income tax be applied based on how active a workers communication is? For example have ten levels of Lithuanian language proficiency. And for every level a worker moves up they get to keep an extra 1% of their income. If a worker wants to work on the country but can't speak the language they should be paying the highest possible rate
Main thing, that goverment finally made rule about local language to service jobs. Who care, that immigrants says, our country, our rules. Many Europe's countries has big problems for immigrants, they live like yours countries, no rules, that's terrible.
in 2022 i was in vilnius..most bolt drivers were polish and kasajos and didnt speak lithuanian ..in mcdonnals all were ukrainians and only speak ukrainians
Well Dovile is young and has no life experience to filter dreamy ideas correctly into realistic working one's, there is no positive encouragement that would work, you might dream about some magical positive encouragement solutions, reality is non of them are effective or financially viable, language is not under threat, but reality where service workers is not speaking nation's language is ridiculous and if market doesn't fix it government needs to step in.
For tourists, whatever. But if you live here you WILL speak our language with us, if not, you are free to leave. Over the history we fought way too long to please every immigrant and vatnik.
The people we are talking about are providing a service at a rate of pay that very few Lithuanians would be willing to accept. They are mostly economic migrants that work here because of the currency conversion rate, and they will probably not stay long-term. Many Lithuanians became economic migrants when they joined the EU in 2004 and did the exact same in Western Europe. They should know better as they were excepted for not speaking the language as they were cheap labour. This has nothing to do with cultural or preserving the language and everything to do with Nationalism and racism. Well lets see what happens to Lithuanians economy if all the economic migrants leave.. good luck 🫡
I personally see a paradox and an issue in this matter. Talking out of my experience, no matter the situation, young ones immediately "built a wall" and spoke English to me without asking, once they have found out that I am a foreigner trying to speak their language. The thing is that English really is too popular among this generation and I wouldn't be surprised if foreigners working and living in Lithuania would struggle in general with such challenging language to begin with and once they tackle some basics and will be finally able to speak the language somehow, native Lithuanians might use the same tactic they used in my case. That would mean that they would again respond in English, most probably leaving foreigners in confusion, as they will say "why the government wants me to learn the language, if locals know and will use English either way, that is unlogical". On a brighter note, coin has always both sides, there are still older generations (25+), whose English is still not good, as they lived in Soviet times and their language is Russian, appreciating foreigners to speak in a native language they both know. But exceptions are still present, I remember chilling by Lentvaris railway station, where a random Lithuanian guy in his 20's came to me and we had a chat. Once I have personally said that my Lithuanian is not the best, he offered me that we could speak not English, but Russian, which surprised me, since that person was most probably born after the Soviet Union. I accepted with pleasure, since my Russian was way better then, yet it gave me a lesson that Russian language is still somehow present and used in Lithuania.
"Older generations (25+)" "as they lived in Soviet times" :DD My dude, no one over 34 lived in Soviet times. I think you meant 40+, not 25+. Russian is present in Lithuania in older generations, but that does not mean the majority of people like to use it, because it was forced on them during the occupation. Can my 60+ parents speak Russian? Yes. However, they really hate that they have to, especially nowadays. And regarding your note on Lithuanians switching to English, it's the unfortunate truth that exists everywhere. It's just easier to switch and end the conversation faster and without misunderstandings. I would recommend to ask them to not switch and say "I want to learn Lithuanian", most will respect your wishes.
I'd suggest being more persistent. Speak in Lithuanian, and if a Lithuanian speaker responds in English, continue speaking in Lithuanian. I did this with German in Nuremberg, I ordered beer and sausages with sauerkraut in super broken German and the waiter lady responded in English with a "don't even bother" look on her face, but I just continued speaking in broken German, and she switched to it too. She didn't seem frustrated or anything, and we did manage to communicate about the order and bill quite nicely and effectively. This is just a single anecdote of course, but Lithuanians may switch to English out of courtesy,, and if you show that you intend to continue speaking in Lithuanian because you want to get better at it most people will appreciate and respect that.
I hear what you are trying to say, I had the same experience learning Swedish. I can totally understand them - they are not directly responsible for me learning their language. It requires additional effort to communicate and also teach. Not everyone has the time or patience. It is nice when people try, but we have to understand that they are doing us a favor and that should not be an expectation. With persistence, I got better, and people simply found it comfortable to not need to switch to English immediately, especially in a group setting. I would say you need to do a better job studying 😉or, you know, talk not only to the young ones... Not everyone in the country are youngsters eager to show off their English skills. Let's respect the rest of the population as well.
@@m.m.6670 There is a plus for a reason, I meant to say something like 25-100. I believe not everyone has goosebumps, when they have to speak the language, my country also suffered because of communism, but there are those, who do not satanize every Russian thing and consider Russian language as an useful tool, because not only Russians are speaking that language. Coin always has both sides.
I'm not Lithuanian nor do I live in Lithuania, so I don't really have insight into the political motivations behind such a law. But the cynic in me wonders if this is meant as a barrier for foreign workers perceived to be taking jobs (and the potential for better pay) away from Lithuanian citizens. I would expect that the kinds of foreign workers participating in these gig-economy jobs do not have the money or time required to take an A1 proficiency course, so this would in a real sense prevent them from being productive members of society. Does the law provide a grace period for new residents to learn while they work, or is the expectation that they've already learned basic Lithuanian prior to arriving in the country? To be clear, I completely agree that if you live and work in Lithuania, you should be learning the language. But depending on how this law gets implemented, it may have the opposite of the intended effect.
The worst thing is that most of the learning materials commonly employed in the Lithuanian language courses for foreigners are pretty useless. Too much focus on grammar, too little meaningful comprehensible input and the recordings of the dialogues sound rather unnatural to say the least. This makes the task of learning Lithuanian even more formidable and frustrating for foreigners. While they should just relax and pay attention to what Stephen Krashen has been saying for decades now. Sėkmės.
The very least what companies can do is warn customers on languages service provider work with and ability to choose in what language customer wants to be served. So if i want bolt or wolt to serve me in lithuanian, english or any other language, I’d want to have this option.
I struggle with Lithuanian as a brit, allways have done, my partner and kids ( all fluent ) don't help as when I speak it they say I sound like a f mexican.
Ignore them and persist, you can do it. My father mocked my mother about her Lithuanian for years, (she's Ukrainian and Russian), and she managed to learn the language so well she hardly makes any mistakes now.
Don't worry and just persist. You will do better. Sounding funny while learning a language is natural. God knows I sound funny in Thai and this is a source of endless mirth at times (especially when I bungle up tones) but very rarely this mirth is in any way mean.
As long as they speak Lithuanian or English I don't mind them providing me with any service. I think a simple solution would be to make an option in the courier's app to chose the language(s) you don't mind to be served in so the wrong person won't pickup your order.
If you use Wolt, I can see how there are situations that might require the use of either Lithuanian, or at least English as a fallback. Not everyone knows Russian these days, so using that as a fallback just doesn't work anymore. Bolt and taxi services - if I use an app, usually there is no need to talk at all. I don't have any special needs in my travel services. Small talk is not a requirement, just take me where I am going. If you as a driver want to talk, learn Lithuanian, English or Russian, but don't expect me to know anything more than Lithuanian. So personally, just in my case, I don't see this as a big problem that needs solving. Even more, as the teacher suggested, requiring A1 may not be a good way to solve it anyway.
As someone who ocassionally orders from Bolt, seeing foreigners try to speak even a little bit of Lith is really adorable to me, however I could see how it is a problem for older generations or those who can't speak more then one language. My probably biggest ops are Russian workers, because a really big part of them simply refuse to learn lith/eng and expect us all to speak russian. Every other foreigner? They're fine to me since I'm a fluent English speaker, but they cause problems for those who can't. ' While learning lith is definetly super hard and A1 level is like... nothing really. We do need a special course focused on working terms. If the foreigners end up enjoying the language from those, they'll probably try to learn the full language anyways, it's a win win
I think employers should pay for immigrants' Lithuanian language courses (meaning pay for the time immigrants would need to spend to learn the language, like paid courses to increasing job proficiency). Also I think the requirement should be to increase language proficiency level for every year the person works in Lithuania, they should be sent to a higher level of language courses as part of their job. That would discourage massive immigration of cheap labor and balance the job market, as the cost of hiring immigrants would move closer to hiring locals.
I think that it's a very important step of integration that many "first adopters" of immigration influx overlooked. It's fine that society is mixed, we just don't need "ghettos" forming inside due to such barriers as language. In my own experience I often try to help delivery drivers find the address they need. If they speak decent English it's great but if they only speak russian well then I can't help them at all and I like helping people, a lot.
I've been living in Lithuania since 2021. I speak mostly English since I originally lived in the UK, but I'm currently learning Lithuanian and Russian. My Lithuanian teacher was not very helpful, so I knew practically nothing in about 3 years of learning the language. But here's the thing, in 2026, I'm graduating from IBDP, and there's no guarantee I'm going to go to university in Lithuania. I really like Lithuania in every way possible, however, this new law is very unfair to people like me. At least they should relax it to either Lithuanian or English, as I believe English is an absolute necessity for everyone in today's world.
Take any job without direct communication to customers and that's all. Regarding language learning. What about intense summer courses in Vilnius University? I don't think that lessons over Skype could make one free speaking quickly. Meeting various people and communicating helps and also it is very good to do it over beer or something like that. Informally. Not drinkers can attend excursions, volunteering events, etc. Do you listen to radio in Lithuanian all the time? Now I'm listening to Polish radio every day to learn better Polish.
@@ASAS-dn4ve That’s a good point, and I should have talked about that. Lithuanian lessons are not the only way of learning the language, and other ways include chatting with friends and relatives.
What will happen is that quite a part of cheap workforce will go off the market, leading to prices for taxi and food delivery go higher and higher. Not sure what dominated the legislators, the typical European desire to regulate or just litthurt for some languages being more popular than the other, but the decision from the economic perspective is pretty dumb. And A1 will not be enough at all, nether will A2, due to local accents difference. :) Here's how to solve this in a win-win way: delivery guys and taxi drivers mark what languages they speak (no need to test, if they lie they eventually get fined by the contractor), and then service users can choose in the settings whether they accept this or that particular language. Those not able to speak popular language get less orders and this **stimulates** them to learn to earn more.
nothing will happen. Those industries existed pretty well before influx of immigrants and will continue to do so. If some prices go up I do not mind paying more. Our language is more important. P.S. and for you not to see why native language should be a default in service industry in here just shows what a rotten person you are.
It’s cool that Lithuanians will be paid more for those difficult jobs, instead of foreigners being paid less and less and coming more and more. Russian is not a language of Lithuania, and should never be.
@@MrCoconut212 Depends on where they're from, East Asians (Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese) and Eastern Europeans (Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Sakartvelans) are welcome since they actually bother to respect cultures, work and pay taxes.
Kai kompanija ar fizinis asmuo pradės mokėti baudas ( 2500€, Estijos atvejis) už kiekvieną tokį " speaks russian or english" , tiesiog tai bus per brangu. Nebent Jūs esate labai užsispyręs ir nelojalus, ir galėsite sau leisti nuolatines tūkstantines baudas😉
I met a completely lost Wolt currier in my neighborhood and he spoke like three words in English and not a word in Lithuanian. It doesn't look like proper immigration nor proper service.
Speaking of proper immigration, traffic police sometimes catches Bolt drivers with fake driving licenses (or taken away, or just no license at all), or they even get deported because of expired visa/TRP.
If it is a student just for education that is planning to go back to its own country then I can really forgive. But who knows if they are not abusing it at this point.
@@ligametis they are. They get student visas, work for a year or so and then leave to other EU countries before paying the taxes.
@@ligametis Jei studentas, tai tegul studijuoja, o ne dirba.
@@ligametis if they were a real student they would at least know English because most courses not in Lithuanian are English, and the ones not in English are in Russian which I also doubt he can speak
Esu turkas ir gyvenu Lietuvoje, visiškai pritariu šiam sprendimui. Lietuvos žmonės nusipelno kalbėti lietuviškai savo šalyje. Aš taip pat esu mokymosi procese.
Šaunuolis! Didžiausia pagarba tau.
bravo
Labai dziugu!
@@Kraziai as irgi labai dziaugiuosi!
Džiugu girdėt, kad mokaisi lietuvių! Linkiu tau sėkmės
Im Canadian living in Estonia. I managed to get my A1 in the first 6 months of being in the country because I thought it was important to be able to speak the language with people within the country. English is a fairly common fall back here but I still think a common decency is to try and speak Estonian to people. Additionally, now I am trying to find work a lot of places require a A2 or B1 minimum in order to work within their companies. So it is definitely a struggle at times for me but I also entirely understand the need to preserve and expand the language as Estonia is a small country and less then 1 million can speak it.
Good on you, man
@@travelvideos at least you have self awareness, and feel guilty for it though. Russians take pride in it, and expect you to speak occupier language
One world language is needed. Stop evil nationalism enforcement.
@@RynaxAlien stfu. That's typical American mentality.
Add Finnish to your language list -- the more you learn Estonian, the better you can understand Finnish.
This is a first of many necessary steps to protect our national identity. A lot of foreigners are coming to our country but a bunch of them (especially ones that are russian speaking) don't care about the culture and language. I had cases where I ordered some food and person did not know how to find my apartment but he didn't speak neither lithuanian nor english. Some even got irritated that I did not speak russian.
They should not be let inside in the first place
Do you really think that such laws can actually force them to care about the local culture? Boy are you naive.
@@DS.J If you will be forced to learn the language, you will have to learn about the culture as well. Most of people who are too lazy to care about the culture won't learn the language and without a job will simply just have to leave the country. Just turn on your brain for a minute before commenting next time 😂
@@DS.J then go home. We dont care. Our country, our rules.
@@shinetalent It's important to understand that noone will be forcing anyone to do anything. You just can't "force" anyone to learn a language, just like you can't force anyone not to use a language. Lithuanians should know this better than anyone.
I'm Brazilian but I love Lithuania (and Lithuanian). I agree with you that this will motivate folks to learn the language. And Dovile's absolutely right about specialised courses.
I'm not too sure how such courses would work, just think of English and try to make "specialized course for service industry", all of it would come back to learning basic communication in a language and parts of it being used in that setting.
we do not need to motivate anyone. If they already spent years working here and did not even put any effort in showing respect to our people, language and culture they are a lost cause and should not be here.
I think that this is also related to the reduction of the russian language.
Sort of, but there are different methods to curb Russification
and that wouldnt be wrong. if not changed, russian speakers keep speaking only russian life long. we need to integrate everyone, who wants to live in LTU.
@tomiskundelis2321 Do you think it will help? I think people are inclined to do what is more comfortable, so if speaking Russian is comfortable, they will do it anyway.
@@Taldisuiskai if choice is to deport or learn LT, all of a sudden we won't have many russian speakers
It's about a real problem. Imagine you order a taxi, but not able to say where, how to go. Or you order a taxi for your child and he's horrified instead of helped.
I'm a language teacher, and I think that any person can attain an A1 level of any language in 6 months, a year at most, people with disabilities being a possible exception. If you narrow down the learning to language for specific purposes, such as giving and being given directions, it would take even less. Personally, the situations where a delivery worker cancels my delivery because of a language barrier or does not even use such basic phrases as "sveiki" and "geros dienos" are very annoying. It takes little effort to learn a few basic phrases in Lithuanian, but knowing them will have a big impact on how people perceive you.
Agree with you..I spend about 8-10 weeks every year in Lithuania,(the last 4 years) and I even have an A1 level proficiency --If you want to learn the language, you totally can.
I have no idea what grade I am but I’m self tought the basics, enough to order a taxi from Kaunas centre to The airport and ask price and agree.
Wow that is a smart comment Mr smart comment.. I agree forcing people to use a language is very progressive!
And it's not like it's difficult to learn a few words in an internal language spoken by over 300,000,000 people..
Wait a minute, sorry, correction, my mistake.. Lithuanian isn't an international language.. it's only used in Lithuania, a country with a lower population than most European cities 🤔
I got confused it's russian and English that are taught globally and spoken by hundreds of millions of people.. oops 😮
I must be some sort of idiot 😕
@@Jay-mc2dz Lithuanian is used across Europe and in the UK and America. There are many Lithuanian nationals in many countries so I think in Lithuania they deserve to begin with their home language.
@@markplenty2631 I agree, they deserve to use their language everywhere including Lithuanian whoever they should also tolerate the use of other languages in Lithuania. As you have correctly pointed out Lithuania is part of a global community and they should act accordingly.
My issue with the attitude seen here is that they do not want to give people the opportunity to learn Lithuanian. Therefore this cannot be about preserving language or culture.. it's about keeping people out.
If you work in a warehouse and your employer is ok with you not knowing the language, it is fine.
But if your job is to interact with customers you should be sufficient enough to do your job. The other day lady who works in a meat section of a supermarket didn't even speak the language, I had to point to her what I wanted. I think people don't want to worry whether they will be able to communicate when getting a service.
English Guy here wanting to move to Kaunas....and i want to totally integrate into Lithuanian society and this will include learning the language but in the UK finding books/apps or courses in Lithuanian is impossible. but when i move to Lithuanian i intend to enrol straight away into several classes a week
Šaunu. Reikia kuo labiau saugoti kalbą. Tiek ilgai išliko ir negalime apsileisti.
Lithuanians must have service provided in lithuanian in Lithuania teritory, especially services like bolt, wolt, etc. This is important, because otherwise lithuanians will experience bad service like late deliveries or prolonged ETA due to miscommunication or lack of communication.
Yea man why should I speak to those drivers in another language!! I think everyone should have a degree in Lithuanian even Americans!! 😂
Our country, our rules. It's not that hard to learn basics of that language
Fair enough, but if you're gonna inforce the need of language for foreigners at least have in place a solid government backed program for teaching it. Lithuania got Jack doss... Like do you expect me to splurge 1000 eur to learn your language from my own pocket or what???
@@HggTr-v4uno language - no job. your problem
@@HggTr-v4u fuck that. We should wipe your ass for you too?
nah, its hard to learn the basics, but I think this will be better for the general public
@@HggTr-v4u yes. This is how it works. You need to learn the language of the country you decide to live in
I order food regularly and i dunno how many times the courier would just refuse to call or text when they can't find the place just circling around or going off the route, because they don't speak either, i have instructions written down in both Lithuanian and English and 90% of them can't read them nor bother to translate. 8 out of 10 times it's going to be a foreigner delivering the food or driving the car. It's kind of insane to me how many foreigners are doing these jobs and i only encountered a handful who could actually communicate basics in lithuanian. I think this should be a natural way of doing things, if you decided to live in a foreign country, do your part in it and learn the language. It's just logical to me. It's particulary obvious in Vilnius. So this is a pretty good thing, if they can't do it on their own, make it happen by law.
Thanks for the video. This information is useful not just for foreigners who are trying to better integrate into a new country and culture, but also for teachers that are helping them to do so.
Soy venezolano, vivo en Lituania. Entiendo que debo ser muy respetuoso con las leyes, cultura y el gentilicio de este hermoso País, y así lo he procurado. Sigo canales de RUclips como este y otros cuyo contenido me brinda información sobre Lituania, sus costumbres, su historia y por supuesto, tutoriales de enseñanza del idioma. A parte he realizado dos cursos presenciales y algo he aprendido a hablar, pero me resulta frustrante oír a la gente hablando y prácticamente no entender nada o muy poco. En mí trabajo he aprendido frases que me resultan útiles a la hora de interactuar con clientes que no hablan inglés. Que por cierto, ese es otro detalle, hay personas que prefieren que les hables en lituano, en la mayoría de casos personas mayores, pero a los jóvenes no les molesta en lo absoluto que hables con ellos en inglés, el cual hablan de manera perfecta. Tal vez ese hecho es el que me ha permitido integrarme sin verme presionado por no hablar bien su idioma. No creo que un nivel A1 sea suficiente para realizar trabajo de Bolt Food. En la actualidad son muchos, creo que la gran mayoría, los extranjeros que realizan ese trabajo y no entiendo como se comunican con aquellos lituanos que no hablan inglés. En mi caso personal, aunque hablo inglés, sigo estudiando y tratando de ampliar mi vocabulario y espero en algún momento hablar con suficiente fluidez el idioma lituano, lo hago por respeto hacia las personas de este pequeño y hermoso País que le dió la oportunidad a mi familia de estar aquí.
I love it! LIke in any other normal Country.
This change is great, laws should benefit the indigenous, not the foreigners. If you can't and don't want to speak like the locals, you're not welcome here. In vilnius I had more taxi drivers who don't speak a word of lithuanian than vice versa. Vilnius is slowly going the way of London and Paris and it scares me.
Vilnius is going the way of Minsk. And it scares me even more.
I know you hear more English and Ukrainian than Lithuanian.. let's give it back to Poland!!!
If I to go to some other country and work there interacting with customers daily while speaking Lithuanian is crazy idea why is requirement like this one so debated on?
Because progressives think any rules put on the third worlders are racist.
IF you are living in foreign country - learn their language. Thats common human decency. Why should I listen to some ukrainian blabering something in russian when I try to get my burger? After the 1st time I used Wolt and I got that experience I just uninstalled the app and just buy everything myself.
Will be funny when russia occupies Lithuania soon, and you will be far, far away, and will see what it really is to learn a foreign language from zero. Hope you will enjoy Greek, buddy 😂
not necessarily a ukrainian, but a belarussian, or god forbid russian, speaking in russian.
+ russians have this imperialist view that their culture/language is superior and haven't had the decency to learn the language for 30+ years of living in the country
Similar laws, and laws outlawing elementary and high schools that teach exclusively in a foreign language, are mostly targeted at the larger Russian speaking populations in Latvia, and possibly Estonia.. There are many generations of Russians who live in Latvia and never learned a word of Latvian, and act as if Latvia was still a part of the USSR. Many laws trying to de-Russify the Baltic countries have gained steam since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. BTW, I was born and raised in New York City, but my first language was Lithuanian. My father is from Mariampole and my mother is from Kaunas.
Who should Russians waste their time and learn the senseless languages? What information or knowledge is available in Latvian and Estonian? Do New Yorkers learn navajo or cheerokee language? Do Canadians learn inuit? Do Peruvians learn quechua?
I do agree. This law makes sense. It is time for foreigners to learn about Lithuania.
I'm totally for this law amendment, since I'm living in my country and those who came here for work must be talking local language to the certain level. It was also noted that those people who came for Central Asia, were told they would be able to speak in Russian in Lithuania, however this is not Soviet times anymore and respect for the locals should come naturally. Try to imagine foreigners coming to Germany for example and they would be speaking Russian or other language but not German, that's unimaginable.
Gyvenau Vokietijoj 2 metus, dirbau su vokišku kontraktu, patikėk, dar ir kaip imaginable. Dauguma lietuvių dirbančių Vokietijoj nekalba vokiškai.
Senai taip reikėjo. Tik gaila, kad ne nuo 2025 įsigalioja.
Asmeniškai mane tai jau užkniso kai aš, pirkdamas paslaugas, esu priverstas bendrauti ne lietuviškai.
Tai jie dar tuo naidojasi, pradeda nesamones plakt savo hindi ir tik no adres tepasako, nors stovi pries duris ;D o tu kaip idiotas eini ieskot i laiptine tada leidiesi laiptais ir kieme stovi kazkur tavo indusas, besitikintis, kad tuoj gales pabegt su tavo uzsakymu
I came to visit family during summer 2024. Had a great time at Dainu Svente! I did find it odd that my bolt driver didnt speak lithuanian, english or polish...
Jesus, what language did he speak?
@@RichieLarpaprobably hindi
I mean polish isn't a common language in Lithuania, russian is more common.
@@slugma1054Pagal duomenis lenkų mūsų šalyje yra daugiau, nedidelis skirtumas, bet daugiau ir kiek pastebėjau dauguma lenkų moka mūsų kalbą.
@@bluerie pagal skaičių jo, bet pagal kalbos naudojimą, lenkų nėra labai naudojama, palyginus su rosjaniu
I get very annoyed when Bolt driver starts speaking to me in Russian directly. On the other hand, I do not really want to talk anyway and it gets me from A to B. Delivering food is also not an issue as they just hand you the food - do not care if they don't speak LT. On the other hand, A1 level is really low and achievable by anyone, it's like what, 3 months course? I doubt it's effectiveness too.
Bolt, Wolt and in Russian? That never happened to me. They always try to speak English, that is even more foreign language.
@@ligametis how is English more foreign than russian? English is an international language and the whole internet is in English. If you don't know English, you are either living under a rock, or are a russian descent half-human.
The law is very much needed. And not only for food deliverers and taxi drivers. There were some articles in the media recently that a patient couldn't get help at an emergency department because the doctor and the nurse didn't speak Lithuanian. Can you imagine that? There are language requirements for such professions, in most of Europe it's mandatory to speak C1 level, some countries are happy with B2 + exam of medical speach.
Well If you go to any foreign country, it is always required to learn the local language to live there, even going as a tourist sometimes people are mad for not knowing their language. Lithuania is no exception! Learn the language or leave!
I disagree about going as a tourist. I speak English, Norwegian, Croatian and Spanish. If I were to go Hungary for example, I would learn Hello and a few other phrases because I think that's the respectful thing to do. But I think it's unreasonable to expect a foreign tourst to speak the language on an advanced level if they're just visiting for a few days.
I completely agree with the ruling. Numerous times I have had the unpleasant experience of being served by someone who spoke neither Lithuanian nor English. In some cases these were solved by pointing a finger in the right direction, but other times it lead to a good 30 minutes of frustration and confusion. Given all the problems that the rest of the European society has had with integrating immigrants, we should try and do better. Creating pockets of alienated cultures and building resentment towards those people won't do any good.
Problem is with us, that we are good for them and we try to speak another language, which better foreigeners. Actually, maybe we think, that they are not so intelligent or something else. We should understand, that it is them problems and we should speak with them only our language.
Learning any language is not a waste of time.
About paying for the courses: the companies do not have to provide the courses as those in question are not employees, they are service providers. As service providers they operate on an individual or business permits, and as such they are eligible for tax breaks if they need courses to provide a service: so basically courses would still be free, just not through the employer, but through the tax reduce.
and those bolt drivers do not even pay taxes. They work for a while and then just leave without paying.
Over here in JAV we are under pressure to learn Spanish. But yet the hispanic population is under no pressure to learn English because all levels of government make it convenient for them to do business in their language and WE are the ones that have to adapt. I have sympathy for Lithuanians.
Agree with the law. Encouraging doesn't work. But yes, for say, taxi driver, learning useful needed sentences for the particular job but to A1 level rather than a generic A1. As a Welsh speaker 🏴 I'm jealous of the strength of the Lithuanian language, but don't take it for granted. You need structural laws and systems to support and grow Lithuania.
It blows me away that something like this isn't already a requirement. If you're working somewhere, you need to be at a conversational level at minimum. I remember Living Languages having 6 week courses (advertised 1/2hr/day) for several languages. They were more designed for business people or diplomats. So, they tended to be more formal. But, this shows that it's very possible to get to this level in a short amount of time.
Carrot vs stick
People tend to be lazy. If someone can get by without learning a language (lots of effort needed), in general they will go without.
I would love to speak more Lithuanian! 🇱🇹 I would have come to live there for a bit and study the language at the University, but things have taken a different path. I taught myself through different apps and google translate enough to get by. I’m now addicted to the country and language.
I personally think it will have a major positive influence:
1) An increase in salary due higher demand of workers (there will be less available cheap labour (supply of workers).
2) Geopolitical safety, security and sovereignty of Lithuania. We Lithuanians want our neighbour to fully understand that we will not assimilate with them and therefore always stay culturally, linguistically and spiritually independent. Lithuanian language is not even a Slavic and therefore it is completely different from Russian language (Ukraine was not so lucky).
3) Language requirements will naturally filter the immigration (with job agreements and motivation). Quality over quantity.
4) Good for an employee (knowing an additional language is simply always good).
5) Lithuania will become more inclusive rather than exclusive - less isolated groups. More unity!
It's good, that such laws are passed!
Personally, I think this is a very understandable move from Seimas and probably long overdue! That being said, I think many people are misunderstanding it as meaning interactions HAVE to be in Lithuanian. They'll have A1 Lithuanian - most Lithuanians will still choose to speak English (or Russian) with them 😂
I think Dovile's idea about specialized courses for specific jobs is the best.
I've experienced this situation of learning a new language three times:
- When I moved to Spain, I had to learn Spanish.
- Later, I relocated within Spain to the Catalonian region, where Catalan was commonly used, so I learned Catalan.
- After many years, I moved to France, and now I'm learning French.
Although these languages were never legally required for my job, not knowing them meant no one would hire me. In Lithuania, the situation should be similar. If you don't speak Lithuanian, you can't work in jobs that require language skills, such as communicating with clients. Not because is mandatory, but because no one would hire you. You don’t need to speak perfectly, but you need to know key terms relevant to the field-something an average person can learn in a few weeks, depending on the profession, of course.
Much needed law. An exception may be applied to using English as a working language of EU.
I had been ordering Wolt every other day April through October. I had been flatly refusing to speak Russian. Only once I had deviated to Polish as a Slavic language any Belarusian or Ukrainian understands.
This new law will give me legal grounds to refuse acceptance of the delivery.
As a Lithuanian who also works as a wolt courier I think that this would help with illegally working immigrants, because many couriers blame them for the low pay, since they accept lower priced orders which let's wolt or bolt pay us less since there's more couriers working for less
I don't use Bolt pick-up services that often but when I do, it's rare that I interact with the driver outside of the casual greeting and a goodbye at the end of the journey but when you need to have something extra (to wait a bit or make an intermediate stop) and can't communicate it with the driver, I can see how it can be a bit complicated. I kind of wished that they (the courier services) would explore an option that would provide a "no-talk" option so you could get a ride without interacting with the driver at all, that way it doesn't matter if the driver speaks lithuanian or not, but I guess it wasn't feasible and might be a bit chaotic to organize.
Without marginalizing to much, the other take is that part of those drivers are russian or from countries with a high russian diaspora, of whom some have lived here all their lives and simply refused to learn lithuanian. This can be viewed as a tool to make those that work in this field to comply or to risk loosing their income.
I like how you pointed out both the upsides and the downsides of this requirement. It's kind of sad that those providing these services couldn't make it work without needing this requirement but I can also see why it is needed and hopefully that won't affect the quality of their services too much. We'll just have to see what the effects will be now.
In my opinion the law is irrelevant, Anyone that wants to live in a foreign country should on their own show some respect by trying to learn some of the host language on their own. If they don't want to try then they shouldn't be allowed to reside there. The only people that are not required to learn the language are visitors and tourists. And when I say visitors they are those that are there for a short term say a year or less. Even though I was born and raised part of my life in Germany by a German mom I was never taught German, when I was deployed there to the fulda gap for 4 years in the US Army I learned it anyway on my own and the local community showed me respect in return, I served there for 4 more years after the wall came down and my daughter was spoken to in German and when I moved back to the US she learned English. It's not a question if foreign residents should learn Lithuanian, Its a question of why they don't try anyway.
very good. Support this law.
Specialized courses sound nice but there is a bit of a problem with. Who's going to be responsible for preparing and testing these exams? If it's the government then that puts a pretty big burden since you would need to create an exam for each specialization and presumably take these exams several times a year.
If you let private bussinesses do all this examination by themselves, then you will create incentives to churn out licenses for learners as quickly and easily as possible. A1 exam is by no means perfect but it is simple, and often a simple solution is better than a more complete but more complicated solution.
You can say carrots are better than sticks but then you live all life in this country and you don't speak Lithuanian come on. Yes Lithuanian language is not easy, but you only need keywords and then you know that, it's much easier to learn more.
And then in the next sentence I say “sticks are better than nothing at all” 😉
I agree that learning basic Lithuanian keywords is very easy.
I can’t believe people would come to live in a country and not try to learn the national language. It’s very sad and disrespectful and should never happen.
@@LithuaniaExplained, it happens because this country had been annihilated by the Russian empires TWICE. The USSR had been a version of that empire for Russians (and all the non-Russians had been heavily Russified in the whole territory that the USSR had occupied). People who come to Lithuania from other Russified countries and from countries in which they learn that Lithuanians speak Russian (like Italy or the Netherlands), they come here to speak Russian and think it is normal, right, fair, and it should stay like this forever. That just annoys every Lithuanian. I am the one who lived in a heavily Russified Vilnius in Soviet times.
I do not understand yonger people like Dovilė, she is too liberal for foreingners. Doesn't she understands that we already hear too many foreign languages in the public plases of Lithuania? Especially in Vilnius city. I hate that Maxima or other food stores almost do not have workers who speaks lithuanian and I can ask them nothing in lithuanian language!!! Why do I have to speak foreign language in my own country? It does not make me become more patriotic for my country if I am starting to feel a stranger in my own Lithuania! Politicians hear me! Make imigrants speak lithuanian before they get a live or work visas! Do not give imigrant citizenship of Lithuania! They can not become citizens of Lithuania! Our LR Constitution states that Lihuanian countries ownership belongs only to Lihuanian nation!
I think that this law is a positive thing, since learning Lithuanian makes foreigners able to be more flexible within the Lithuanian job market. As a foreigner living in Lithuania learning basic A2 Lithuanian language was important to me in my first year here. It also helps if you work with Lithuanians everyday and if you need to deal with government departments or need help at a doctors or so on. English can only get to so far and restricts what you can do. But Dovile is right there does need to be more encouragement and provision for foreigners in regards to learning Lithuanian. But there also needs a little stick, just to make sure that everyone at least has some basic knowledge. With regards to Lithuanian language knowledge in services, this is something particulary relevant in Vilnius
2026? Why not even 2025? 2026 sounds like never, because it can be changed to never by then.
I'd like to comment on Dovilė's opinion and say that just being in a supposed "good situation" with our language prevalence now, does not automatically guarantee that it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. These proposed measures are a good step in the right direction to make sure our language does not get pushed to the sidelines in favor of whatever's most convenient or dominant as it has been for most of this country's history, first with polish, then russian.
I have moved to Vilnius and lived here for several years. The problem of foreigners not knowing our language here is especially bad compared to me being used to be able to communicate all in my own language alone. We shouldn't be the ones expected to learn a language like russian or some other 3rd world equivalent whose people's are being bussed in by businessess at this very moment, with the sole reason of keeping wages stagnant and working conditions piss poor. They are a people who can put up with a whole lot more for a whole lot less.
8 4:22
I am so for this, even though I don't remember there being any service problems as I just write the instructions in Lithuanian/English and so far no problems, I do wonder if they just translate that text to russian or I was just lucky to get people who understand either of those languages. In any case a basic language requirement is a must just so Lithuanian heritage doesn't die out, it already feels too russian-fied whenever I browse RUclips or TikTok logged out and then it's just russian content getting spit in my face
Esmė tame, kad tu neturėtum to daryti, jie turi integruotis į šalį, ne šalis į juos. Gyvenau 7 metus Vokietijoj ir nė karto naudodamasis paslauga nebuvo taip, kad nekalbėtų Vokiškai, mūsų šaly įprasta taikytis prie užsieniečių, kai dauguma kitų šalių to netoleruotų.
I order food regularly and i dunno how many times the courier would just refuse to call or text when they can't find the place because they don't speak either, i have instructions written down in both and 90% of them can't read them nor bother to translate. 8 out of 10 times it's going to be a foreigner delivering the food or driving the car. It's kind of insane to me how many foreigners are doing these jobs and i only encountered a handful who could actually communicate basics in lithuanian.
@@artcika exactly. I had instructions written in Lithuanian and English. Those retards could not find me most of the time even though it was so clear on the map. Then they would call me and try to speak to me in russian while driving circles around my building.
i disagree with Lithuanian teacher about A1 level if they see rise in need to learn direction vocabulary they should change lesson content or provide additional lesions focusing on vocabulary needed for jobs
As a Canadian who will be moving to Lithuania at some point, I agree that Lithuanian should expect to be able to communicate in lithuanian and I support this new requirement. Of course it is easy for me to say that as it does not effect me now, or if I were to retire here to be close to mt wife's family.
I personally can get by mostly with the help of google translate when I need to communicate with one of my eifes friends who does not know any english (or french, or german, or italian which is do speak a little of each). But I find it not as us full when I need to really get technica or specific as I tried recently when asking a store worker about home automation options.
On a related topic, I have heard that there is a language requirement ( that might be changing) for foriegners to know a certain level of lithuanian to renew temporary or perminant resident permit.. I am keen to know about this as when we move here I will likely retainer my canadian citizenship and would be planning on becoming a perminant resident.
I believe that since I would be in lithuania to reunite with my lithuanian wife, that the language requirement for me to obtain temporary residence permit, or renew ng it, or obtain ng a perminant resident permit, may not require a Lithuanian language test. I believe that I am in a similar position to you in this regard, so you may be perfectly placed to know what the current language requirements would be for me.
My wife's family chooses to speak russian so I am exposed to that only and am picking it up, which further complicated and slows learning Lithuanian.
Another great video.
Thanks
You have to take a language exam if you want to get permanent residency, BUT they are also talking about a language exam if you want to extend temporary residence permit after living here for 5 years. I applaud this because a lot of disrespectful pieces of shit live here for YEARS and just keep extending the TRP without putting in any effort to learn the language.
I am a taxi driver and I know very little Lithuanian. The local people are very nice and understanding. And most of the population knows English anyway.
I also support this idea and it would be great if we could have daily conversations in the local language.
However, companies do not make it easy for us to learn the language, as you mentioned in the video. As you mentioned, companies should give us free courses or online training. Companies leave us alone, they say, no language, no job.
The fact that the service sector is cheap and fast is due to the fact that we, foreign workers, are in the system so much. When the decision is implemented and only those who have language proficiency will be able to work, but in this case, it seems that there will be some problems in the service sector.
(Delays in orders, taxi price increases, etc.) ačiū, kad skaitėte.
Companies should, but i heard taxi drivers at bolt taxi works not on worker contract, but on individual buisness license, so i can see why these specific companies could refuse training.
Please, find a real job. It takes years of knowing people and town traffic to become a taxi diver, language is your smallest problem.
nobody owes you anything. Learn by yourself if you cannot find courses and if there will be "problems" for foreigners not working in service industry anymore I do not mind paying more.
@@noob8 companies should not give them anything. Drivers should come working for those companies ALREADY knowing Lithuanian language. There was a loophole in the laws and that is why we have this disgusting attitude and services now. This law was implemented to fix that. By how those foreigners are bitching and moaning to not have free language courses handed to them already shows how selfish and disrespectful they are. No place in here for such people. They expect us to spoon feed them while they are simultaneously spitting in our faces. Disgusting.
@@MrCoconut212 I didn't say anyone owed me anything, man. I was just giving a general overview of the situation.
I suggest all living on Lithuania make effort to learn Lithuanian, simple as that (or leave)
I totally disagree with a lady in the end speaking how our language should not be enforced.
No one is FORCING immigrants to learn. They can go back to their countries, or they should choose jobs that do NOT require a communication, like some construction positions.
And I do not care if Wolt or Bolt closes down because of it. Others will step up and take their place.
I am from Bangladesh. I can speak English and Bangla. I am planning to go to Lithuania as a student. I need earn my living expense there by doing job. If the govt doesn’t allow me to work as a food delivery boy then how can I be there? I think this wouldn’t be a good decision. I am interested to learn Lithuanian but imposing something will restrict the students who prefer Lithuania than the other European countries. This is a shocking news for me. Thanks.
I think the problem is real, but as always the government tries to do something, but doesn't do it properly or fully thinks it out. Hope we all (foreigners and locals) manage to adapt.
This law is mainly targeting russian speaking people as they are not willing to integrate. We have some of them living in here 30yrs and still refusing to speak the language. So this will force them, other nationalities are willing to learn and do learn quite quickly so there is no issues with them.
It is EXTREMELY uncommon to see native Russian speakers who have been "living in here for 30 years" and don't speak the language. To be honest, I have only seen only a handful of such people during my entire life and in all cases it's some really old grandmas who probably find it difficult to learn the language in their late age.
Not really. Not that many Russian speakers in service industry, mainly English speakers.
I don't think so. It might be there are some local only Russian speakers in Lithuania but they're far from young. They're deep inside their niches. The law is aimed to younger people who provide services and their customers are mostly forty and younger as well. These Lithuanians don't speak Russian in general.
I approve this law.
Those are good and much overdue changes.
Good!
why is dovile speaking from the bottom of a well
Is there some kind of comment filter on this channel? Why did my comment disappear?
I’m not sure? But I can see this comment… of course.
youtube overlords delete comments randomly
In Latvia we have kind of similar law and we have bunch of deliver people who do not speak latvian and sometimes even english is bad.
Hopefully this will inspire someone to create a Duolingo Lithunian course or a Rosetta Stone course. Currently i can learn Klingon or Elvish with more convenience than Lithuanian.
When I live in another country, I learn that language of country where I live, do all immigrants must learn Lithuanian, otherwise, get out of us country...
I'm talking about Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians immigrants.
Our country our rules, if you don't like our rules, get out of our country. We love our old indo-european language
"Lithuanian language never been in a better position than it is now" Is this really your argumentation? So it won't harm if we make it worse? I am sorry Dovile, but what are you saying is crazy for a teacher.... Good that foreigners are culturally close to us, but integration is necessary. And the best way is by learning the language, because if they will feel that they don't need it, they wont. We don't want to have the same problems like other Nordic countries (Sweden for example). I have met few Ukrainians living in Kaunas, they told me that their parents told to go to this city, because more Lithuanian language is spoken. Vilnius becoming more russian speaking city. Ask anyone that has been living there more than 5 years.
Yes, I agree it is a waste of time to learn A1. It should be at least B2.
EDIT: I remember situation with Wolt in which the delivery guy from some middle east country tried to deliver order to me and he not only couldn't speak Lithuanian, but his English was HORRIBLE. Such people should not work such a job. Even during my holidays I try to learn at least few basic words and sentences of country I am visiting and sometimes I feel that I put more effort for a week long visit compared to these (di)sservice people.
As an American who has travelled in and out of Lietuva for over 20 years, I salute Lietuva for making people learn the language. God knows we have enough "citizens" of our own country who can't order a cup of coffee and a meal in English because we fail to make people learn proper English. Aciu Lietuva!
Have you heard of the notion of ressentiment?
One time my Bolt food guy, got lost by wood's near my girlfriend house, and got a lost in dark and fell in a puddle.
Don't know anything about the tax system there but can a tiered income tax be applied based on how active a workers communication is?
For example have ten levels of Lithuanian language proficiency. And for every level a worker moves up they get to keep an extra 1% of their income. If a worker wants to work on the country but can't speak the language they should be paying the highest possible rate
Main thing, that goverment finally made rule about local language to service jobs. Who care, that immigrants says, our country, our rules. Many Europe's countries has big problems for immigrants, they live like yours countries, no rules, that's terrible.
in 2022 i was in vilnius..most bolt drivers were polish and kasajos and didnt speak lithuanian ..in mcdonnals all were ukrainians and only speak ukrainians
In my experience, this has a lot more to do with Russian, than English.
Tai puiki naujiena.
Bro aint even Lithuanian and knows more than me. Shame on me!
Well Dovile is young and has no life experience to filter dreamy ideas correctly into realistic working one's, there is no positive encouragement that would work, you might dream about some magical positive encouragement solutions, reality is non of them are effective or financially viable, language is not under threat, but reality where service workers is not speaking nation's language is ridiculous and if market doesn't fix it government needs to step in.
I agree with the teacher, specific words for specific jobs.
At least doctors should be able to speak and understand some lithuanian
For tourists, whatever. But if you live here you WILL speak our language with us, if not, you are free to leave. Over the history we fought way too long to please every immigrant and vatnik.
The people we are talking about are providing a service at a rate of pay that very few Lithuanians would be willing to accept. They are mostly economic migrants that work here because of the currency conversion rate, and they will probably not stay long-term. Many Lithuanians became economic migrants when they joined the EU in 2004 and did the exact same in Western Europe. They should know better as they were excepted for not speaking the language as they were cheap labour. This has nothing to do with cultural or preserving the language and everything to do with Nationalism and racism. Well lets see what happens to Lithuanians economy if all the economic migrants leave.. good luck 🫡
Leftard detected.
I personally see a paradox and an issue in this matter. Talking out of my experience, no matter the situation, young ones immediately "built a wall" and spoke English to me without asking, once they have found out that I am a foreigner trying to speak their language.
The thing is that English really is too popular among this generation and I wouldn't be surprised if foreigners working and living in Lithuania would struggle in general with such challenging language to begin with and once they tackle some basics and will be finally able to speak the language somehow, native Lithuanians might use the same tactic they used in my case.
That would mean that they would again respond in English, most probably leaving foreigners in confusion, as they will say "why the government wants me to learn the language, if locals know and will use English either way, that is unlogical".
On a brighter note, coin has always both sides, there are still older generations (25+), whose English is still not good, as they lived in Soviet times and their language is Russian, appreciating foreigners to speak in a native language they both know. But exceptions are still present, I remember chilling by Lentvaris railway station, where a random Lithuanian guy in his 20's came to me and we had a chat.
Once I have personally said that my Lithuanian is not the best, he offered me that we could speak not English, but Russian, which surprised me, since that person was most probably born after the Soviet Union. I accepted with pleasure, since my Russian was way better then, yet it gave me a lesson that Russian language is still somehow present and used in Lithuania.
"Older generations (25+)" "as they lived in Soviet times" :DD My dude, no one over 34 lived in Soviet times. I think you meant 40+, not 25+. Russian is present in Lithuania in older generations, but that does not mean the majority of people like to use it, because it was forced on them during the occupation. Can my 60+ parents speak Russian? Yes. However, they really hate that they have to, especially nowadays. And regarding your note on Lithuanians switching to English, it's the unfortunate truth that exists everywhere. It's just easier to switch and end the conversation faster and without misunderstandings. I would recommend to ask them to not switch and say "I want to learn Lithuanian", most will respect your wishes.
I'd suggest being more persistent. Speak in Lithuanian, and if a Lithuanian speaker responds in English, continue speaking in Lithuanian. I did this with German in Nuremberg, I ordered beer and sausages with sauerkraut in super broken German and the waiter lady responded in English with a "don't even bother" look on her face, but I just continued speaking in broken German, and she switched to it too. She didn't seem frustrated or anything, and we did manage to communicate about the order and bill quite nicely and effectively. This is just a single anecdote of course, but Lithuanians may switch to English out of courtesy,, and if you show that you intend to continue speaking in Lithuanian because you want to get better at it most people will appreciate and respect that.
I hear what you are trying to say, I had the same experience learning Swedish. I can totally understand them - they are not directly responsible for me learning their language. It requires additional effort to communicate and also teach. Not everyone has the time or patience. It is nice when people try, but we have to understand that they are doing us a favor and that should not be an expectation.
With persistence, I got better, and people simply found it comfortable to not need to switch to English immediately, especially in a group setting. I would say you need to do a better job studying 😉or, you know, talk not only to the young ones...
Not everyone in the country are youngsters eager to show off their English skills. Let's respect the rest of the population as well.
well learn proper level of Lithuanian and locals will be happy to talk to you or at least ask them to not switch to English. Jesus...
@@m.m.6670 There is a plus for a reason, I meant to say something like 25-100. I believe not everyone has goosebumps, when they have to speak the language, my country also suffered because of communism, but there are those, who do not satanize every Russian thing and consider Russian language as an useful tool, because not only Russians are speaking that language. Coin always has both sides.
I'm not Lithuanian nor do I live in Lithuania, so I don't really have insight into the political motivations behind such a law. But the cynic in me wonders if this is meant as a barrier for foreign workers perceived to be taking jobs (and the potential for better pay) away from Lithuanian citizens. I would expect that the kinds of foreign workers participating in these gig-economy jobs do not have the money or time required to take an A1 proficiency course, so this would in a real sense prevent them from being productive members of society. Does the law provide a grace period for new residents to learn while they work, or is the expectation that they've already learned basic Lithuanian prior to arriving in the country?
To be clear, I completely agree that if you live and work in Lithuania, you should be learning the language. But depending on how this law gets implemented, it may have the opposite of the intended effect.
Bolt vs. Balt(ic). Hmm.... You've been wolted & bolted! When in Rome speak like the Romans do.
The worst thing is that most of the learning materials commonly employed in the Lithuanian language courses for foreigners are pretty useless. Too much focus on grammar, too little meaningful comprehensible input and the recordings of the dialogues sound rather unnatural to say the least. This makes the task of learning Lithuanian even more formidable and frustrating for foreigners. While they should just relax and pay attention to what Stephen Krashen has been saying for decades now. Sėkmės.
more lithuanian language courses plz. most of us willing to learn
The very least what companies can do is warn customers on languages service provider work with and ability to choose in what language customer wants to be served. So if i want bolt or wolt to serve me in lithuanian, english or any other language, I’d want to have this option.
Lithuanian should be the default. THEN, if you do not know Lithuanian you should be able to choose.
I struggle with Lithuanian as a brit, allways have done, my partner and kids ( all fluent ) don't help as when I speak it they say I sound like a f mexican.
Who cares? Try and learn it, nobody cares what you sound like. Lithuanian is fucking hard, at least try to learn the language.
It is not necesary to speak fluent, basic understanding and simple basic communication will do it.
Ignore them and persist, you can do it. My father mocked my mother about her Lithuanian for years, (she's Ukrainian and Russian), and she managed to learn the language so well she hardly makes any mistakes now.
@@MrSmartComment slavs, especially Ukrainians will have it easier to learn Lithuanian, because Ukrainian has a few similarities to Lithuanian
Don't worry and just persist. You will do better. Sounding funny while learning a language is natural. God knows I sound funny in Thai and this is a source of endless mirth at times (especially when I bungle up tones) but very rarely this mirth is in any way mean.
As long as they speak Lithuanian or English I don't mind them providing me with any service. I think a simple solution would be to make an option in the courier's app to chose the language(s) you don't mind to be served in so the wrong person won't pickup your order.
If you use Wolt, I can see how there are situations that might require the use of either Lithuanian, or at least English as a fallback. Not everyone knows Russian these days, so using that as a fallback just doesn't work anymore.
Bolt and taxi services - if I use an app, usually there is no need to talk at all. I don't have any special needs in my travel services. Small talk is not a requirement, just take me where I am going. If you as a driver want to talk, learn Lithuanian, English or Russian, but don't expect me to know anything more than Lithuanian.
So personally, just in my case, I don't see this as a big problem that needs solving. Even more, as the teacher suggested, requiring A1 may not be a good way to solve it anyway.
As someone who ocassionally orders from Bolt, seeing foreigners try to speak even a little bit of Lith is really adorable to me, however I could see how it is a problem for older generations or those who can't speak more then one language. My probably biggest ops are Russian workers, because a really big part of them simply refuse to learn lith/eng and expect us all to speak russian. Every other foreigner? They're fine to me since I'm a fluent English speaker, but they cause problems for those who can't. '
While learning lith is definetly super hard and A1 level is like... nothing really. We do need a special course focused on working terms. If the foreigners end up enjoying the language from those, they'll probably try to learn the full language anyways, it's a win win
I think employers should pay for immigrants' Lithuanian language courses (meaning pay for the time immigrants would need to spend to learn the language, like paid courses to increasing job proficiency). Also I think the requirement should be to increase language proficiency level for every year the person works in Lithuania, they should be sent to a higher level of language courses as part of their job. That would discourage massive immigration of cheap labor and balance the job market, as the cost of hiring immigrants would move closer to hiring locals.
I think that it's a very important step of integration that many "first adopters" of immigration influx overlooked. It's fine that society is mixed, we just don't need "ghettos" forming inside due to such barriers as language.
In my own experience I often try to help delivery drivers find the address they need. If they speak decent English it's great but if they only speak russian well then I can't help them at all and I like helping people, a lot.
I've been living in Lithuania since 2021. I speak mostly English since I originally lived in the UK, but I'm currently learning Lithuanian and Russian. My Lithuanian teacher was not very helpful, so I knew practically nothing in about 3 years of learning the language. But here's the thing, in 2026, I'm graduating from IBDP, and there's no guarantee I'm going to go to university in Lithuania. I really like Lithuania in every way possible, however, this new law is very unfair to people like me. At least they should relax it to either Lithuanian or English, as I believe English is an absolute necessity for everyone in today's world.
Take any job without direct communication to customers and that's all. Regarding language learning. What about intense summer courses in Vilnius University? I don't think that lessons over Skype could make one free speaking quickly. Meeting various people and communicating helps and also it is very good to do it over beer or something like that. Informally. Not drinkers can attend excursions, volunteering events, etc. Do you listen to radio in Lithuanian all the time? Now I'm listening to Polish radio every day to learn better Polish.
@@ASAS-dn4ve That’s a good point, and I should have talked about that. Lithuanian lessons are not the only way of learning the language, and other ways include chatting with friends and relatives.
What's a "Lithuania"?
What will happen is that quite a part of cheap workforce will go off the market, leading to prices for taxi and food delivery go higher and higher. Not sure what dominated the legislators, the typical European desire to regulate or just litthurt for some languages being more popular than the other, but the decision from the economic perspective is pretty dumb. And A1 will not be enough at all, nether will A2, due to local accents difference. :)
Here's how to solve this in a win-win way: delivery guys and taxi drivers mark what languages they speak (no need to test, if they lie they eventually get fined by the contractor), and then service users can choose in the settings whether they accept this or that particular language. Those not able to speak popular language get less orders and this **stimulates** them to learn to earn more.
I'll gladly pay more to my fellow Lithuanian rather than some random indian.
nothing will happen. Those industries existed pretty well before influx of immigrants and will continue to do so. If some prices go up I do not mind paying more. Our language is more important.
P.S. and for you not to see why native language should be a default in service industry in here just shows what a rotten person you are.
It’s cool that Lithuanians will be paid more for those difficult jobs, instead of foreigners being paid less and less and coming more and more. Russian is not a language of Lithuania, and should never be.
This has ruined all my plans
very good. Don't come.
What country are you from?
@@MrCoconut212 Depends on where they're from, East Asians (Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese) and Eastern Europeans (Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Sakartvelans) are welcome since they actually bother to respect cultures, work and pay taxes.
@@inactive859 I agree.
Everybody's gonna speak Russian anyway 🤣
Kai kompanija ar fizinis asmuo pradės mokėti baudas ( 2500€, Estijos atvejis) už kiekvieną tokį " speaks russian or english" , tiesiog tai bus per brangu. Nebent Jūs esate labai užsispyręs ir nelojalus, ir galėsite sau leisti nuolatines tūkstantines baudas😉