How LABASklabas was born
— How did LABASklabas come into your life?
— LABASklabas "happened" as a spontaneous thought, when I was once again searching for Lithuanian-language courses. Although I passed the A2 exam after just 1.5 years of living in Lithuania, I wanted to develop the skill further. But what was on offer either didn't match my expectations or cost like "the wing of an airplane". Yes, B1-B2 courses are a niche product, but in my view, they shouldn't cost as much as three A1-A2 courses combined.
I also missed interactivity and proper feedback in the lessons. That's what I'm now trying to embody on my own platform for spoken Lithuanian practice.
— You run conversation clubs yourself. Is your level of Lithuanian enough to keep a conversation going?
— I don't hide from users that I'm still learning, and I see that this honesty is appreciated. Of course, it's nice to hear from Lithuanians themselves that I speak Lithuanian as if I'd lived in Lithuania not 3 but 10 years, and they ask which part of Lithuania I'm from — possibly because of the accent)
You've probably already noticed that Lithuanians love it when foreigners can say a simple "Laba diena" or "Viso gero". See for yourself: want a charge of positive energy? Talk to Lithuanians in Lithuanian! They'll praise you head to toe, lift your self-esteem, and somewhere even give you a discount. That's not a joke.
The LABASklabas team already includes native Lithuanian speakers. Some sessions are run by non-natives — those are cheaper and well-suited for conversation practice — but on most lessons there's a Lithuanian native nearby, often several different ones at the same meeting. So for someone joining the club right now, talking to a native speaker is part of the format, not a rare exception.
LABASklabas is not academic courses but a conversation club, where we learn to string words into sentences, discuss interesting and current topics, rather than just memorizing rules.
Among the hosts there are both teachers and Lithuanians with curious minds who enjoy keeping a conversation going with immigrants and helping them integrate. To run a club you don't have to be a professional teacher — what matters more is being attentive to the conversation and to the people themselves.
The team is taking shape, hosts come, try themselves out, and users can sign up for sessions with different people, find someone they're comfortable speaking with, at the right level, and improve their conversation practice.
How meetings are structured
— How are the club's meetings organised?
— All LABASklabas meetings happen online. That means users can join the conversations whenever and from wherever it's convenient. When I talked to other immigrants, they emphasised that they don't mind attending such classes, but the time isn't right, or it's too far to travel. You can keep talking about reasons all day, but my situation is exactly the same. No free Saturday conversation club with coffee and cookies will tempt you if you live in Žirmūnai while the lessons are in Karoliniškės and start at 19:00. And if you're a mother — especially a working mother — it's simply not realistic, at least in my case.
Flexibility of formats is one of the club's advantages: everyone can find the time, the host and the topic where they feel most comfortable starting to speak.
So we developed what I see as the most convenient way for everyone — both for the hosts of the clubs and for their attendees. The host can set the meeting time on the platform and pick a topic. The visitor can choose a level from A1 to B2, a topic that interests them, a date, and join the conversation at the appointed time.
The cost of joining a conversation club is from 3-5 euros depending on group size and the host's qualifications. For now all the income is reinvested into the platform's development. Still, I haven't lost hope that Lithuanian businesses will join our cause — those who need to integrate their employees into the local environment. And, perhaps, educational organisations who want to tell foreigners about traditions and life in Lithuania.
Who comes to the club
— Who is your typical user?
— An immigrant) And not only from Eastern Europe. The hosts also speak English; teacher Rasa doesn't know Russian at all, but she can keep a conversation going in French or Italian.
I think the club could be useful even for Lithuanians living abroad who want to keep up their native language or who want to come back home.
But the main mass is, of course, Russian-speaking users — they make up the majority of immigrants in Lithuania today. And again it's a good thing that LABASklabas is available online. We have many participants from different towns in Lithuania where there may not be as many language initiatives as in the capital.
— Are there students whose stories really got to you?
— Yes. There was a girl from Ukraine, it was hard for her to speak, but she's a real trooper, she tried so hard. I asked her some question, silence hung in the air, and suddenly, with a heavy, breaking voice, she breathed out: "I want to go home". Honestly, I almost cried.
But it's all not in vain. We live here and now, we learn to enjoy every ray of sunshine, as if we're standing on our feet again, putting down roots. And, of course, we learn Lithuanian, because we live in Lithuania, we respect the Lithuanians who took us in, and I'm sincerely grateful to them.
Stereotypes and the fear of mistakes
— What problems did you run into while building the platform?
— I wouldn't call them problems, but there are certain stereotypes in society that people use to box themselves in — both students and teachers.
Stereotype 1: Lithuanian is a very difficult language
Just take this: foreigners are told everywhere that Lithuanian is a difficult language. In essence, it's just as difficult as German, French, Spanish, or any other language in the world. There's no easy language if it isn't your native one.
So you need to part with this prejudice and start speaking.
Stereotype 2: Making mistakes is unacceptable
There was a recent good example: stickers were put up around Vilnius for foreigners with Lithuanian words, so they could learn and remember translations. But "pilis", for instance, was translated as "tower", although "tower" in Lithuanian is actually "bokštas".
That said, it's a really cool idea, and thanks to the city — but even here we can see that natives themselves make mistakes. And note: they don't really worry about it.
Stereotype 3: Language learning is serious work
Sometimes people don't need to be taught — they need to be inspired, and they'll start speaking themselves. I think it's always useful for both teachers and us, the hosts, to engage imagination, try AI, build a lesson so that it's interesting first of all to the host themselves.
One of our attendees once said that even in her native language she wouldn't mind discussing the chosen topic — that's how interested she was in joining in.
Where the materials come from
— On the topic of materials. Do you create them yourself or use someone else's work?
— There's a base you can't avoid. But even that I try to interpret in my own way, so it would be understandable to me, a "non-native" speaker. I really like a thought from the Lithuanian historian Rūstis Kamuntavičius, who said: if you want to learn something, forget about textbooks. He's exaggerating, of course — you have to know Rūstis, since he writes those textbooks himself — but there's some truth in it. Our environment is constantly changing, teaching approaches are being reconsidered. If you, as a teacher, aren't interesting to your student, the student will skip your lectures or fall asleep at the desk. A teacher is a creator, an artist, like Michelangelo. The way they start sculpting — that's what comes out in the end.
Katya actively generates witty pieces of art for her sessions using neural networks, for which she sometimes even gets pushback. But these have already become the project's calling card.
The path to the role of teacher
— Did you ever picture yourself as a teacher?
— When the time came to apply to university, there was a scandal in my family. My relatives insisted I go into pedagogy, that being a teacher is a respected and honourable profession, even if not very well paid. Of course, I didn't see myself in that role. What's more, I didn't see myself in that role just a couple of months ago. But I really love languages. When I moved to Vilnius, I realised that here, speaking at least 3 languages is a sign of good form. And most of my Lithuanian friends speak 4 or 5 languages — it's almost the norm. I thought to myself: how cool, why don't Belarusians do this?)
So in my life, alongside English, Russian and Belarusian, came Lithuanian and Polish. And it broadens the horizons so much, makes mutual understanding so much easier, you can feel the mutual loyalty and respect between people — it's hard to put into words.
And of course I want to share this feeling with others. I hope I'm managing.