Vabalas

Good Day! Today I wanted to post about one of my favorite Lithuanian words. As I have previously mentioned I lived in the country of Lithuania for two years. During that time I learned to speak Lithuanian. Which, incidentally, is the oldest living language in the world. It is a very beautiful language, both in the way the sentences flow and in the way it sounds to the ear. It is also a very difficult language. Just ask any Lithuanian. In fact most Lithuanians were surprised that I would even attempt to learn it let alone speak it fluently.

Since the time i began learning Lithuanian I had long wanted to know what Lithuanians call the VW Bug. I wan't sure if they simply called it the Beetle, pronounced like a Lithuanian, or did they have their own nickname for it?

The answer came when I had been in Lithuania for about nine months. As part of our volunteer work we taught free English discussion groups to help people who were interested to improve their English skills. For this class I only had one student and I told him about my hobby in English and he had to translate what I was saying back into Lithuanian. He did really well until I said the word Beetle. He didn't understand. So I took a piece of paper and drew a VW Bug on the paper. He recognized it right off, and he was able to tell me the translation. They do have a nickname for it. And since that time it has been one of my favorite words. In Lithuanian the VW Beetle is called a Vabalas. Literally translated it is a Beetle.

Now you can impress somebody at the next car show. Show them your multilingual abilities! I'd love to hear in the comments below, what languages do you know how to say VW Beetle in?