Lithuanian verb conjugation follows a predictable and logical pattern.

Every verb changes its ending based on who’s doing the action and when it happens.

Understanding these patterns is a massive step toward speaking Lithuanian naturally.

I’ll show you exactly how to conjugate Lithuanian verbs in the present, past, and future tenses.

How Lithuanian verbs work

Before conjugating, you need to recognize the infinitive form of a verb.

In English, the infinitive has the word “to” in front of it, like “to read” or “to work”.

In Lithuanian, almost all infinitives end in the letters -ti.

For example, the verb dirbti means “to work”.

When you conjugate a verb, you remove this -ti ending and replace it with a new ending.

This new ending tells the listener exactly who’s performing the action.

Lithuanian uses six grammatical persons based on these pronouns:

One huge advantage in Lithuanian is that the third-person singular (jis/ji) and third-person plural (jie/jos) always share the exact same verb form.

Present tense conjugation groups

Lithuanian sorts all verbs into three main groups for the present tense.

These groups are defined by the vowel used in the third-person ending.

They’re commonly called the -a, -i, and -o conjugation groups.

The -a conjugation group

This is the largest group of Lithuanian verbs.

Let’s look at how to conjugate dirbti (to work).

The -i conjugation group

This group usually contains verbs that end in -ėti in their infinitive form.

Let’s conjugate the common verb norėti (to want).

The -o conjugation group

This group contains many verbs ending in -yti or -oti.

Let’s conjugate the verb skaityti (to read).

Past tense conjugation

The simple past tense tells us about completed actions.

Lithuanian past tense verbs fall into two main groups based on their third-person ending.

They’ll end in either -o or -ė.

Let’s look at dirbti (to work) in the past tense, which takes the -o endings.

Future tense conjugation

The future tense is the easiest tense to learn in Lithuanian.

There are no separate conjugation groups to memorize.

You simply take the infinitive, drop the -ti, and add the future endings.

Here’s how you conjugate dirbti for the future tense.